The Typology of Scripture

By Patrick Fairbairn
Published by Smith & English, 1854

BOOK THIRD.

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPEMENTS.

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 in doing so, it shall be our chief object to mark the successive stages, by which either some peculiar developement was given in respect to their typical relationships, or these relationships themselves were loosened in order to make way for the larger grace and higher realities of the Gospel.

SECTION FIRST.

P. 428-438.

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 land formed one of the things most distinctly promised in the Abrahamic covenant; and as matters actually stood, when the fulfilment came to be accomplished, the possession could be made good only by the overthrow and destruction of the original inhabitants. This mode of entrance on the possession has been often denounced by infidel writers as cruel and unjust; and has not unfrequently met with a lame defence from the advocates of a divine revelation. Even heathen morality is said to have been offended at it; and we learn from Augustine and Epiphanius, that the ancient sect of the Manicheans, who were more Pagan than Christian in their sentiments, placed it among "the many cruel things which Moses did and commanded," and which went to prove, according to their view, that the God of the Old Testament could not be the God of the New. All the leading abettors of infidelity in this country--Tindal, Morgan, Chubb, Bolingbroke, Paine--have decried it as the highest enormity; and Bolingbroke, 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 theologians 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 older 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 refusal 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 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. xx. 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. xxiii. 33, xxxiv. 12). Such explicit commands manifestly did not contemplate any plans of reconciliation, and left no alternative 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. ii. 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 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. xii. 6); and in it, not merely as a wandering shepherd or temporary occupant, but as its settled and rightful possessor, to whom Abraham and his immediate descendants stood in the relation of sojourners. Hence the promise given to Abraham was, that he and his seed should get for an everlasting possession "the land wherein he was a stranger." The testimony of Scripture is quite uniform on the two points--that Canaan, as an inheritance, was bestowed as the free gift of God on the seed of Abraham, and that the gift was to be made good by a forcible dispossession of the original occupants of the land.

It is plain, therefore, that according to the representations of Scripture, the family of Abraham had no natural right to the inheritance of Canaan. Nor would it be hard to prove, that such false attempts to smooth down the inspired narrative, and adapt it to the refinement of modern taste, instead of diminishing, really aggravate, the difficulties attending it; that if, in one respect, they seem to bring the transaction into closer agreement with Christian principle, they place it, in another, at a much greater, and absolutely irreconcilable distance. For, on the supposition that the posterity of Abraham were the original possessors, why should God have kept them, for an entire succession of generations, at a distance from the region, making their right--if they ever had any--virtually to expire, and rendering it capable of vindication no otherwise than by force of arms? Surely, on any ground of righteous principle, a right at best so questionable in its origin, and so long suffered to fall into abeyance, ought rather to have been altogether abandoned, than pressed at the expense of so much blood and desolation. And if the situation of the Canaanites had been such as to admit of terms of peace being proposed to them, then the decree of their extermination must have been in contrariety with the great principles of truth and righteousness.

It will never be by such methods of defence that the objections of the infidel to this part of the divine procedure can be successfully met, or what is more important--that the God of the Old Testament can be shewn 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, and that coupled with 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 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. xxiv.) 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 Melchizedec. That period, and the one immediately succeeding, was peculiarly the day of their merciful visitation. But they knew it not; and so, according to God's usual method of dealing, he gradually removed the candlestick out of its place--withdrew his witnesses to another region, in consequence of which the darkness continually deepened, and the iniquity of the people at last became full. Then only was it that the cloud of divine wrath began to threaten them with overwhelming destruction---not, however, even then, without giving awful indications of its approach by the wonders wrought in Egypt and at the Red Sea,---and again hanging long in suspense during the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness, as if waiting till a little further space was given for repentance. But as all proved in vain, mercy at length gave place to judgment, according to the principle common alike to all dispensations, "he, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy"--and, "where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together;" in plain terms, whenever iniquity has reached its last stage, the judgment of Heaven is at hand. This principle was as strikingly exemplified in the case of the Jews after our Lord's appearing, as in the case of these Canaanites before. In the parables of the barren fig-tree and the wicked husbandmen in the vineyard, the same place is assigned it in the Christian dispensation which it formerly held in the Jewish. And in the experience of all, who, despite of merciful invitations and solemn threatenings, perish from the way of life, it must find an attestation so much more appaling than the one now referred to, as a lost eternity exceeds in evil the direst calamities of time. In fine, the very same maybe 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 to execute such a sentence by the hand of the Israelites, must it not 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 on his administration in such a way as may best suit the ends of divine wisdom, because human fraud or folly may take encouragement from thence to practise an unwarranted and improper imitation. Thoughts of this description carry their own refutation along with them. The commission given to the Israelites was limited to the one task of sweeping the land of Canaan of its original occupants. But this manifestly conferred on them no right to deal out the same measure of severity to others; and so far from creating a thirst for human blood in cases where they had no authority to shed it, they even fainted in fulfilling their commission to extirpate the people of Canaan. This, however, is only the negative side of the question; and viewed in another and more positive aspect, the employment of the Israelites to execute this work of judgment was eminently calculated to produce a salutary impression upon their minds, and to promote the ends for which the judgment was appointed. For, what could be conceived so thoroughly fitted to implant in their hearts an abiding conviction of the evil of idolatry and its foul abominations--to convert their abhorrence of these into a national, permanent characteristic, as their being obliged to enter on their settled inheritance by a terrible infliction of judgment upon its former occupants for polluting it with such enormities? Thus the very foundations of their national existence raised a solemn warning against defection from the pure worship of God; and the visitation of divine wrath against the ungodliness of men accomplished by their own hands, and interwoven with the records of their history at its most eventful period, stood as a perpetual witness against them, if they should ever turn aside to folly. Happy had it been for them, if they had been as careful to remember the lesson, as God was to have it suitably impressed upon their minds.

3. But the propriety and even moral necessity of the course pursued become manifest, when we view the proceeding in its typical bearing--the respect it had to gospel-times. There were reasons, as we have seen, connected with the Canaanites themselves and the surrounding nations, sufficient to justify the whole that was done; but we cannot see the entire design of it, or even perceive its leading object, without looking farther, and connecting it with the higher purposes of God respecting his kingdom among men. What he sought in Canaan was an inheritance--a place of rest and blessing for his people--but still only a temporary inheritance, and as such a type and pledge of that final rest which remains for the people of God. All, therefore, had to be arranged concerning the one, so as fitly to represent and image the higher and more important things, which belong to the other--that the past and the temporary might serve as a mirror in which to foreshadow the future and abiding, and that the principles of God's dealing toward his church might be seen to be essentially the same, whether displayed on the theatre of present or of eternal realities. It was partly, at least, on this account, that the place chosen for the inheritance of Israel was allowed, in the first instance, to become in a peculiar sense the region of pollution--a region that required to be sanctified by an act of divine judgment upon its corrupt possessors, and thereby fitted for becoming the home and heritage of saints. In this way alone could the things done concerning it shadow forth and prepare for the final possession of a glorified world--an inheritance which also needs to be redeemed from the powers of darkness, that meanwhile overspread it with their corruptions, and which must be sanctified by terrible acts of judgment upon their ungodliness, before it can become the meet abode of final bliss. The spirit of Antichrist must be judged and cast out; Babylon, the mother of abominations, which has made the earth drunk with the wine of her fornications, must come in remembrance before God, and receive the due reward of her sins; so that woes of judgment and executions of vengeance must precede the church's occupation of her purchased inheritance, similar in kind to those which put Israel in possession of the land of Canaan. What, indeed, are the scenes presented to our view in the concluding chapters of revelation, but an expansion to the affairs of a world, and the destinies of a coming eternity, of those which we find depicted in the wars of Joshua? In these awful scenes we behold, on the one hand, the Captain of Salvation, of whom Joshua was but an imperfect type, going forth to victory with the company of a redeemed and elect church, supported by the word of God, and the resistless artillery of heaven; while, on the other hand, we see the doomed enemies of God and the church, long borne with, but now at last delivered to judgment--the wrath falling on them to the uttermost, and, when the world has been finally relieved of their abominations, the new heavens and the new earth rising into view, where righteousness, pure and undefiled, is to have its perennial habitation.

We have said, that the work of judgment in the one case was similar in kind to what shall be executed in the other; but we should couple with this the intimation, 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. cxlix. 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; as it is never more necessary for the Lord's people to be in the full enjoyment of the privileges of a saved condition, and in a state of greater nearness to himself, than when they are proceeding in his name to rebuke and punish iniquity. The work given Israel to do in this respect was emphatically a work of God, bearing on it the impress alike of his greatness and his holiness. And both a living faith, and a sanctified heart, were needed on the part of Israel to fulfil what was required of them. On this account special supports were given to faith in the miracles wrought by God at the commencement of the work, in the separation of the waters of the river, and the falling of the walls of Jericho, as afterwards in the extraordinary prolongation of the day at the request of Joshua; shewing 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 the preservation of holiness and the possession of power. 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 commonwealth of Israel, and the protestations of allegiance to God, which Joshua made before his death, and they again to him, clearly shewed, that much of the spirit of faith and holiness rested upon that generation. In them the covenant found, in no small degree, a faithful representation, as well in regard to its requirements of duty, as to its promises of grace and blessing.

SECTION SECOND.

P. 439-444.

THE PERIOD OF THE JUDGES.

The period, which is known as that of the Judges, in its character, not less than its position, stands intermediate between the leadership of Moses and Joshua, on the one hand, and the institution of the kingly government on the other. On the people's part it continually gave evidence of evils springing up in their condition, originating in their own unfaithfulness to covenant-engagements; and on God's part it equally gave evidence of his readiness to interpose in their behalf, and provide saviours for the ever-recurring times of danger and trouble. These temporary saviours, or judges, are undoubtedly to be regarded as standing in a typical relationship to the Messiah, presenting, as they severally did, certain personal manifestations of the power and goodness of God to rescue his people from evil, and maintain inviolate the provisions of the covenant. The typical element, however, is certainly of a somewhat vague and indefinite character--though occasionally, as in the cases of Gideon and Samson, the modes of the divine manifestation present more marked and striking resemblances to those which appear in the personal character and work of Christ. In its more immediate aspect, the period may be regarded as the one peculiarly appropriated to the developement of the life and relations of the covenant-people, in connection with their tribal separateness, yet collective unity. Free scope was given to the exercise of the powers belonging to them, as a royal priesthood, whether as individuals, or by means of their tribal constitutions. But unfortunately the trial only shewed how inadequate the covenant-arrangements then existing were to secure a state of proper rest and blessing, and how much every thing still bore the stamp of imperfection. The general nature of the period, and its unsatisfactory results, are very graphically described by the sacred historian near the commencement of the Book of Judges:---"The children of Israel forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Astaroth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them; and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies. Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn unto them: and they were greatly distressed. Nevertheless the Lord raised up judges, which delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them. And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers walked in, obeying the commandments of the Lord; but they did not so. And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord was with the judge, and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge: for it repented the Lord because of their groanings by reason of them that oppressed them and vexed them." (Judg. ii. 12-18).

These verses present us with an epitome of the whole history of the period under consideration, and bring out prominently its two great features--the spirit of degeneracy and backsliding in the people, and the still abiding faithfulness and love of God. The more, too, the details of the history are examined, the more does the wonderful goodness of God appear. The very troubles that were allowed to befal the people--the sources of vexation left to work upon them from within, and the heavier calamities ever coming on them from without, were proofs of this; as they were all wisely ordered and arranged, to check the spirit of defection, and drive the people back on the only arm of strength that could support and bless them. And the distributive manner in which the means of deliverance were provided for the occasion, was also eminently calculated to diffuse a revived and faithful spirit through the community. Not only were persons of suitable gifts and endowments raised up from time to time to do the part of deliverers, but these persons were obtained from the different tribes in succession--for the purpose, no doubt, of shewing more manifestly, that the eye of a gracious God was on them all, and that if their eyes were but turned toward him, as they should have been, every district and corner of the land might have been replenished with life and vigour. The tribes of Judah, of Ephraim, of Manasseh, of Issachar, of Zebulun, of Napthali, of Benjamin, of Dan, as well as the land of Gilead, each in turn furnished the person who was honoured to save and judge Israel. Thus God distributed the more singular gifts of his grace throughout the tribes, that the benefit and honour connected with their exercise might be shared by the different sections of the community, and that they might be the more united together as by the bond of a common interest in the Lord. Instead of this, however, jealousy and strife were too commonly the result of any distinction given in that respect to one tribe above another. The tribe of Ephraim especially gave frequent manifestations of a selfish and factious spirit, and shewed a disposition to lord it over the rest. But in the latter portion of the period, great disorders of every sort manifestly prevailed, and there were fierce outbreaks of carnal rivalry and reckless daring, as well as symptoms of wide-spread apostacy from the true worship and service of God.

In these later times of general declension and disorder, it pleased the Lord to raise up one, who was, in some respects, the most singularly endowed of all the Judges, and in a peculiar sense " a sign and a wonder" to his people. This was the Nazarite, Samson, a man of the tribe of Dan. Separated from his mother's womb for special service to the Lord, by the Nazarite vow, not voluntarily undertaken, as in ordinary cases, but solemnly imposed by a messenger from heaven, he was in his very calling and endowments a witness from above, as to the real ground of all the troubles that beset them, and the way by which the return of strength and prosperity might be attained. It was their selfish and worldly spirit, carrying them away after the vain idols and corrupt pleasures of the world, which had caused their strength to depart from them, because it had separated between them and God. Would they but abandon these, and dedicate themselves with one heart and soul to the service of Heaven, the might also of Heaven would become theirs, and the word of Balaam concerning them as a nation would be verified: "The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn; he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows." Such was the instruction designed to be conveyed through the person and supernatural endowments of the son of Manoah. What he possessed quite miraculously in connection with his special separation to the Lord, the nation at large was taught to consider as ready to be imparted in sufficient measure for all their necessities, if, with solemn consecration of heart, they had resolved to be for God and not for another. In that case the marvellous impersonation of divine strength, which appeared in the person of Samson, would have transferred itself to them as a people; the spirit of the Lord would have moved them, as it moved him in the camp, so that instead of quailing before their enemies, "five should have chased an hundred, and an hundred put ten thousand to flight;" they might even have turned themselves on every hand with royal freedom, and multiplied occasions of meeting with their adversaries with no other effect than that of increasing their opportunities of successful conflict. But it was very different in the reality: the people were too selfish and degraded to read the moral import of the sign that was given them from Heaven; and the man in whom that sign appeared, instead of being taken as a rallying-point, around whom they should gather to revive the languishing cause of God, was eyed with jealousy and distrust, and within as well as without found his path encompassed with snares and discouragements. It proved too much for him; borne away by the evil of the times, he sold his strength, which had carried him in triumph through so many dangers, into the enemy's hands. But in this also he was a sign to his degenerate countrymen. This violation of his Nazarite vow, and the humiliating condition to which it reduced him, was a living image of the faithless part they had themselves acted, and the disastrous results that had flowed from it. And though no excuse could thence be derived for the waywardness of his course, yet the instruction ministered through him to Israel would not have been complete, he would not have been the sign to Israel he actually was, unless the secret of his might had for a time departed from him; and in this respect also he had appeared as a personified Israel. But he fell, as God's people generally, only for a time; and the last great effort of his gigantic strength, though fraught with ruin to himself, was pregnant with hope to his people. For, as his fall shewed how everything of good depended on fidelity to the vow of God's covenant, so the revival of his strength with the growth of "the hair of the head of his separation" proved that for those who returned to their allegiance, recovery was possible even from the lowest depths; and that the people had but to lay hold anew of the covenant of their God in order to awake as a giant from his sleep.

It is only when viewed thus as a sign to Israel, that we obtain an adequate explanation, either of the miraculous circumstances connected with the birth of Samson, or of the prominence given to his singular history. The things recorded would not have been entitled to so large a place, had they referred merely to the case of a private individual, and were they to be judged by a merely personal standard. It is also, when thus viewed, that the transition presents itself as alike natural and instructive, from the history of Samson to the things that occurred presently afterwards in Israel. In its immediate results, the mission of the son of Manoah had comparatively failed; it wrought no great deliverance in the earth; but we know not how many bosoms may have been awakened by it to more earnest thoughts concerning the work and service of God. Its affecting close especially was fitted to beget deep searchings of heart regarding the cause of such a painful result, and to stir up spiritual longings after that God who had given such a striking manifestation of his power and goodness. And it is more than probable, that in this way a real connection subsists between the life and death of Samson, and the birth of the next great instrument of God--that of the pious Samuel. It must have been at a period not very remote from the death of the former, that Hannah asked this child of the Lord, and coupled the request with a promise, that if her prayer were granted, she would devote the child from his birth by a Nazarite vow to the Lord (1 Sam. i. 11). Given, as he thus was, in immediate answer to prayer, and to be a Nazarite from the womb, there was something also in his case supernatural; and in his very existence and calling he too was a sign to Israel. But a sign of a higher kind.

The comparative failure in the case of Samson had arisen from the too great predominance of the merely outward and physical, and the want in himself and the people around him of the higher elements of power. It is not too much to suppose, that the pious Hannah perceived this, and at all events it was perceived by the penetrating eye of God. Hence, it was ordered that the next peculiar light given to Israel, should not only be a Nazarite from his birth, but a Nazarite of the tribe of Levi (1 Chron. vi. 28), and as such capable of being dedicated to the Lord for special service in connection with the house of God, and the things that more immediately concerned his service. By this, it was virtually intimated, there was need for an inward, before there could be any proper ground to expect an outward, revival of the cause of God: the restored life and energy must begin at the centre; and only if the worship of God was purified, and the hearts of the people were turned back again to the Lord God of their fathers, could they be again raised to external honour and prosperity. That such was really the divine order was proved by the result. Samson, with all his corporeal might, had failed to recover his people from the dominion of the Philistines; and during the feeble and corrupt administration of Eli that followed, the evil still waxed worse, until the ark itself was carried away in triumph by the adversary. But Samuel's Nazarite service was of a nobler kind. He began and carried forward a great spiritual reformation; instituted schools or settlements of the prophets, whose lively zeal and devotedness rebuked the languid spirit of the times; and produced such a resuscitation of faith and piety among the people, that more even than Samson's might was conferred on them, and the Philistine yoke was broken, as if it had been but " flax that was burnt with fire." Thus, the Lord taught his people then, and he teaches us still, how much the spiritual in his kingdom transcends that which is physical; and how, if his servants would be borne triumphantly through the trials of life, and do great things for his cause on earth, they must seek the chief elements of their strength in faith upon his word, and devotedness to his fear.

SECTION THIRD.

P. 445-448.

THE KINGLY INSTITUTION.

The circumstances connected with this institution, which occured in the latter period of Samuel's administration, too plainly proved that the revival effected by him was far from being complete, and that much of the old leaven of corruption still remained working. We have already referred to these circumstances, when treating of that combination of type with prophecy, which arose out of the institution of the kingdom of David's house, and have also both there and in the Appendix on the Old Testament in the New explained the typical relation of David's throne to that of Christ (vol. i. B. i. 4, and Appendix B. sec. 3); so that a few supplementary remarks are all that can be required here. It was not, as formerly stated, to the proposal itself to have a king, that any objection lay in the constitution of the theocracy; and Moses had even prescribed certain rules to be observed by the people, in case they should resolve on electing a king, and by the king whom they might elect, (Deut. xvii. 14-20). Nor can we doubt that, in anticipation of such a change ultimately taking place in the form of the government, the priesthood was made so exclusively spiritual in its functions, that there might be no intermingling of the two lines in what properly belonged to each. The only danger in the matter was, that the people, on their part, should proceed in a wrong way to the election, and that the king, on his, should exercise his royal powers in an improper manner. It is simply, indeed, to these two points, that the prescriptions of Moses refer. They require that the people should be careful to appoint only him whom the Lord chose, and that the king chosen should rule only in the name, and in conformity with the law of God, who was still to continue the supreme head of all power and authority in Israel. It was because the people were not paying due regard to these instructions, and also because the king they desired was not likely to rule according to their spirit, that the Lord gave, through Samuel, strong evidence of his dislike to the proposal, and at length altogether rejected the king on whom the choice had fallen. The whole train of circumstances connected with this rejection, and with the subsequent appointment and elevation of David to the throne, were ordered with a view to the bringing out of the twofold fact, that the visible king over God's heritage must be one who had the seal of God's election to the office, and that he must rule in God's name and stead, and for the promotion of the great ends of righteousness. These conditions were such unusual exactions from kings, and in themselves so contrary to the will of the flesh, that even the house of David soon failed to comply with them, and the covenant made with him respecting the perpetuation of the royal dignity in his house was at last suspended, till He should come, in whom no sin or imperfection of any kind should be found.

How clearly David himself perceived the nature of the kingdom connected with his house, and how anxious he was that his posterity should also perceive and act on it, appears, in the first instance, from the great striving of his life, which was directed toward the establishment of a pure worship and a living piety; then, from the large body of psalmodic poetry he left behind him, in which the calling and duties of the king are often vividly delineated; and, finally, from the last words he indited, which were evidently meant as his dying testimony to those who should inherit after him the kingly office. In this testimony he expressed, as with his last breath, his firm belief of the certainty of that covenant which God had made with him, his clear apprehension of the spiritual and holy ends for which it was instituted, and the glorious results for mankind in which it should terminate. "David the son of Jesse saith, and the man raised aloft saith, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet Psalmist (literally, of sweetnesses in the songs) of Israel: The Spirit of Jehovah spoke by me, and his word was upon my tongue; the God of Israel said to me, the Rock of Israel spoke, The ruler among men is righteous, the ruler in the fear of God. And he is as the light of the morning; the sun (viz. such a morning as that when the sun) goeth forth, a morning without clouds; from the brightness, from the rain the tender grass [springeth] out of the earth. Is not my house so with God? For he hath made with me an everlasting covenant,--(or, For, is not my house so with God, that he hath made with me an everlasting covenant)--ordered in all things and sure; for it is all my salvation and all my desire-- shall he not make it to flourish? [3] But Belial [men] are as thorns thrust away, all of them; are they not taken by hand (or, by violence)? And the man that strikes at them is fenced with iron and the staff of a spear, and with fire shall they be utterly burnt without fail" (2 Sam. xxiii. 1-7). The description is made general as to the subject of it ("the ruler among men"), not as if David were simply drawing a delineation of kings at large, but because he understood that the right to rule among men in the proper sense, the authority to exercise lordship and control in God's name, and with blessing to the world, was now permanently vested in his house; so that the special, in one respect, was the most general in another. And hence he immediately couples the ruling power spoken of with the sure and everlasting covenant made with himself. It is as if he said, There is no kind of ruling worth naming but this; and he that exercises it--he, who is capable of doing so--he who does it according to the intention and appointment of God, reigns in righteousness, and, because he so reigns, is the instrument of conferring the richest and most refreshing benefits on the subjects of his sceptre; while the enemies of righteousness shall be brought to desolation. David wished nothing more for his house, than that it might fulfil aright its destiny to supply the world with such a righteous administration, and holds up before his successors on the throne the pattern for their imitation. But David himself knew, and we know yet better, that the description should be properly realized only when the kingdom came into the hands of Immanuel, who was personally to fulfil all righteousness, and by his word and Spirit was ultimately to diffuse its blessings to the farthest bounds of the habitable earth.

The institution of a kingdom, then, in the house of David was but a change in the external form of the theocracy, not an interference with its spirit and design. It was not intended to displace God from the supremacy in it, but only to give God, in the person of one of its members, a visible and human representation. A shadow was thus presented from the outset of the incarnation of the Son, and the ground laid for the comforting assurance, that as the future High-priest of men, so also their everlasting King, should be one taken from among his brethren. And, as in the earlier prototype, so in the ultimate form of the institution, it is God's throne, which the anointed king occupies, and God's kingdom over which he rules and presides. Hence, when Christ represents himself as sitting on his Father's throne (Rev. iii. 21; Eph. i. 20), it is not, as if he held that throne now, and at some future period were to come and occupy his own. He and the Father are one. The kingdom, with all its fulness of life and blessing, is the Lord's. Christ's office throughout is mediatorial, delegated, vicegerent; and as in the days of his flesh he did all in his Father's name, in that name also will he reign and rule. It was his peculiar glory to be able to say, "All things that the Father hath are mine;" and to sit on the Father's throne, and wield, in the behalf of his redeemed, the destinies of the Father's kingdom, is but the further developement of that glory. Beyond this, there is nothing more to be attained, nothing higher to be conceived--till the kingdom itself in its mediatorial aspect shall be consummated, and God himself shall be all in all.

SECTION FOURTH.

P. 449-454.

THE PROPHETICAL ORDER.

It was no more alien to the theocratic constitution as set up by Moses, to admit of an order of prophets bringing from time to time special messages from above, than it was to concentrate its executive powers in the kingly institution. The occasional employment of such divine messengers was from the first anticipated by Moses; and certain characteristics were given by which to test the veracity of those who might appear with that name, and also directions issued how to deal with the announcements they made (Dent, xviii. 15-22). Such an anticipation alone bespoke a sense of the relative imperfection of the dispensation introduced by Moses. It was a virtual confession, that further revelations than it imparted were needed to carry on the work of God among the Israelites, and make them fully acquainted with the truths of God's kingdom. Yet they were not on this account to slight what was already given, or to regard it as insufficient for their instruction in all ordinary circumstances. Indeed, as actually employed, the dispensers of this new and superadditional light derived their calling, and the occasion of their communications, from the sinful neglect of what had been revealed of truth and duty by the ministrations of Moses. It was rather for remedying an existing evil, than for communicating an additional good, that the prophetical gift was in the first instance conferred, and the authority connected with it exercised. The spirit of prophecy that appeared in Samuel, with whom the more regular prophetic agency began, and to whom may be ascribed the institution of a prophetical order, was called forth by the cry of abounding iniquity and general disorder. It awoke then into living and systematic energy, when the ordinary means of instruction had proved manifestly insufficient, and exerted itself at first chiefly in rousing men to a sense of guilt in having departed from the requirements of the law, and in earnest strivings after a better state of things. It was essentially a spirit of revival; though employing for the promotion of its objects, not merely the more lively and exciting exercises of devotion, but also the occasional announcement of coming events. In David's time, too, the Spirit of prophecy partook largely of the same character; in rousing and energetic strains it exhibited the real design and object of the Mosaic institutions, and strove to have the old framework of the law lighted up in all its departments by the flame of a sincere and ardent piety, and in its practical observance rendered the faithful exponent of a righteous people. Along with this, however, the spirit of prophecy in David and his inspired associates took a loftier flight, and gave promise of a time, when other agencies than those then at work would be brought into the field--when the divine kingdom would be set up in higher hands than those which then directed its concerns--when the righteousness of God, holding the sceptre of the kingdom, should diffuse itself in acts of mercy and judgment among the people, and not only in the land of Canaan, but throughout the nations of the earth, should establish the just, and destroy the seed of evil-doers. The whole of this stream of prophecy--prophecy of the Davidic type--may be said to run in the channel of the older covenants, those of Abraham and Sinai; yet so as, at the same time, to bring out their real import and design--to inspirit them with new meaning--to shew, that when fulfilled according to their true intent, there would be not merely the decencies of a formal service, and the pomp of a sacrificial worship, but far more and better than these--the spirit of truth in the inward parts, the delighting in the law of God in the heart, and the exhibition of his truth and righteousness before men. What was aimed at for the present, and what was predicted to take place sometime in the future, was the indefinite rise and extension of the divine kingdom, by the growth of a true spirit of piety and worth, or the copious production of such a genuine seed of blessing as God from the first sought among men.

It soon became evident, however, that this great end was not to be secured by any partial improvement in the polity introduced by Moses, such as took place when the supreme power in the administration of its affairs was vested in an earthly head. The change for a time wrought well, but only for a time. Ere long degeneracy and corruption entered into the royal house itself, and spread like a pestilence throughout the land. As the spiritual distempers grew, the judgments of God fell in successive and deepening visitations of evil; and a time came, when not the realization of splendid hopes, but the doom of irrecoverable desolation and ruin seemed to be the consummation in prospect. It was when matters were verging towards such a state, or had actually reached it, that prophets with the higher gifts of the Spirit were raised up, and brought the more into play the extraordinary powers vested in them, the more inadequate common resources were seen to have become. Among these prophets there are characteristic differences, both in respect to the nature of their several communications, and to the form in which they are presented. But in certain leading characteristics there is an entire coincidence. There is so, first of all, in the relation occupied by the prophets, as a class, to the law; they were one and all the asserters and expounders of its righteousness. This they constantly held up as in itself right and good, and charged upon the people's heedless and unprincipled violation of its commands, whatever was to be found of trouble or calamity in their condition, holding out the prospect of a return to blessing and prosperity only through a return to the obedience required at their hands. Such prophetic ministrations clearly implied, that while the law was laid upon the nation collectively, it was also laid upon the conscience of each person individually; and, indeed, that the righteousness it demanded was a work, a life, for which every one in his particular place was responsible. In this part of their labours, too, it is to be observed, that the teaching of the prophets fell in with the more spiritual operation of the law itself. When pressing the obligations of the law's righteousness, they never fail to make it understood, that what they meant by this was something very different from a merely external show of obedience, or a multiplication of sacrificial offerings; it was a sincere and hearty surrender to the will of God, in all that was morally and spiritually good. They often even disparage the outward appearance and the ritual service, when these were not rendered as the expression of inward principles and feelings, but put as a substitute for them (Isa. i. 11-15, Ixvii. 1-3, Micah vi. 6-8, &c). On this point it is justly remarked by the author of Ancient Christianity (vol. I. p. 161), that the prophets and other inspired writers of the Old Testament always chiefly insist upon "the great principles and the unchanging requirements of justice, mercy, temperance, as well as upon the developement of the more intimate principles of the spiritual life. What is the book of Psalms? Is it a manual of monkery? What are the prophets? Are they the zealous sticklers for ablutions? And do they chafe and fret on points of the ascetic ritual? Such are not the characteristics of the inspired writers of the Old Testament; who are manifestly imbued with the spirit and the power, with the truth, the reason of the apostles--although they did not enjoy the same light."

We cannot but notice it also as a characteristic of the prophetical teaching, and a preparation for the change to be introduced by the kingdom of the Messiah, that there is less of the national aspect in the form of instruction communicated, more of the individual and personal; and not unfrequently the distinction is very pointedly drawn between the one and the other, and the sincere and spiritual, though ever so few and humble, are preferred above all that was outwardly great or esteemed. The prophets render more prominent than was done even in the Psalms, the election within the election--the real seed of blessing as but a part of the children of the covenant. Thus the prophet Isaiah distinguishes between the two: " Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him." And again, "To this man will I look (not to other things, however externally beautiful or attractive--not to the temple itself, and its outward worship, but to this man) who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word" (ch. iii. 10,11, Ixvi. 2). The writings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel contain many passages of a similar import. Especially striking is the representation of Ezekiel, in which he exhibits the glory of Jehovah forsaking the earthly temple, and appearing on the banks of Chebar, that he might there be a sanctuary to such as sought him with a true heart and a right spirit (ch. x. xi. 16-25). And in the latest prophetical writings, those of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, there is a constant reference, in connection with the future manifestations of God, to the essential distinction between the spiritually good and bad in Israel; and the design and effect of the coming manifestations are represented as differing according to the relation in which men might stand to the truth and righteousness of God.

In fulfilling these departments of their office, as expositors of the law of God and preachers of righteousness, the prophets had to encounter many trials and hardships, indignities, persecutions, imprisonment, and even death, were too often what came upon them as the reward of their spiritual life and faithful representations. They were obliged to become as aliens to their own brethren, and in what they experienced typified the condition and treatment, which on a like account, and in a more intense degree, were to befal Jesus as the great prophet of his church. Their word, however, lived and proved itself to be the word of God, as Christ's also did in his time, by the response it met with in enlightened bosoms, and the confirmation it received by the dispensations of God. And looking even to that part of their writings, which may be said to be of a more strictly legal and didactic nature, it is manifest, that the hope was, in a manner, abandoned of obtaining, as things then stood, a national exhibition of the truth and righteousness of God, and that consequently, when the divine kingdom should come to be reconstructed and placed on a better foundation, respect should be had mainly to the personal and spiritual characteristics of the individuals who should belong to it.

As to that better foundation itself, or the higher form which the kingdom was to assume in the future, and which it was the part also of the prophets to unfold, there is a considerable diversity, as well as a comprehensive fulness in the instruction which is furnished by their writings. And if we should look merely to the form of their communications, undoubtedly it might often seem as if they only anticipated a revival and enlargement of the old; since it is usually under the aspect of what had been, that they foretel what was yet to be. There are not wanting traits and incidents, however, in their delineations of the future, which plainly enough imply that the future was to differ very materially from the past, and to differ especially in the more effective agencies it would employ to secure a spiritual and godly seed, and the more marked distinction that should be made between such and others of an opposite description. The later prophecies of Isaiah especially are full of this. The bright and elevating hopes there held out to the people of God, all turn on manifestations of God's grace and goodness, which were to exceed all that had been in the past, and were to be the means of bringingforth a seed so full of faith and holiness, so replenished with the spirit and strengthened with the might of God, that outward evil should gradually give way, and every thing rise to a higher sphere of blessing. Jeremiah, in like manner, speaks of that better time, as one in which the people should be fed with knowledge and understanding--when they should no longer need such imperfect instruments of sanctification as the ark of the Lord---when the covenant in its old form should be done away, and a new covenant with better promises and more spiritual powers should take its place (ch. iii. 15, 16, xxxi. 31). In the same direction also point the great evangelical prophecies of Ezekiel and Joel concerning the outpouring of the Spirit, with its blessed results of a spiritually enlightened and regenerated people (Ez. xxxvi. 25, 26, Joel ii. 28); and, to mention no more, the prediction of Malachi concerning the Lord's coming to his temple, that he might purify the sons of Levi, and obtain an offering of righteousness. A church or kingdom framed in accordance with such representations, and fitted to give them practical effect, must necessarily have been one that primarily took account of the state of the inner man, and required as its fundamental condition, that its members should be rightly affected in their hearts toward God. A conviction to this effect would naturally grow and deepen in thoughtful minds, when they considered the many intimations contained in prophecy respecting the extension of God's kingdom to other nations of the earth--a change that necessarily implied the elevation of spiritual characteristics over all merely national peculiarities. It was impossible, in short, to examine carefully the prophetic intimations of the coming age, without perceiving that the spiritual element was to be much more prominently displayed in the divine kingdom; that by a new revelation of the Lord's glory and the richer communication of his grace to men, the outward and symbolical was in many respects to be supplanted by the inward and real, and the children of God raised to a much nearer resemblance to his image and a higher fitness for his service.

SECTION FIFTH.

P. 455-459.

THE BABYLONISH EXILE AND ITS RESULTS.

The strong tendency we have marked in the prophetical teaching to characteristics of a more spiritual and personal kind, was confirmed by an event in providence which, in the long run, was perhaps even more influential in its working. This was the Babylonish exile, or, as it may more fitly be termed, the dispersion which began with the Babylonish dominion, but extended to other lands, and continued even to apostolic times. The dispersion itself came as the judgment of Heaven on account of Israel's long-continued and incorrigible apostasy. The laying of Jerusalem on heaps by a heathen power, the subversion of Judah's independence, and the banishment of her people to a foreign region, were in themselves evils of the greatest magnitude. They were an appalling sign before the world, that the mission of Israel as a separate and highly-privileged people had comparatively failed, and that they were appointed to shame and humiliation among men, because they had been tried by God, and found miserably wanting. But God's work of judgment upon his own people differs from that inflicted upon aliens; there is always intermingled with it an element of good; and not uncommonly does it form the commencement of a new and more effectual mode of working out the purposes which had failed to be accomplished in the original and more direct line. It certainly was so in the case now under consideration.

Babylon was allowed, as a chastisement to the covenant-people for their sins, to lay waste their heritage, and lead them captive at her chariot-wheels as hapless exiles. But Babylon was soon made to feel, that a power mightier than her own slumbered among these very exiles, and that the conquered were, in a sense, to give laws to their conquerors. It was simply the want of personal holiness--the want of a living faith in God, and of an unswerving devotedness to his service, which had cast Israel down from her pre-eminence among the nations. But now the desolating judgments of God were overruled to the awakening in many bosoms of the ancient spirit of piety, and caused them to seek for the old paths. The sign of Samson in the prison-house of Gaza began at length to find its realization in the prisoners of Babylon--the strength that had departed from them in the season of their unfaithfulness again returned. It returned first of all in Daniel and his three youthful companions, who held fast their allegiance to the God of heaven amid all the fascinations and splendour of a heathen palace; who, in the face of the assembled might and glory of the kingdom, withstood the peremptory decree to worship the golden image set up in the plain of Dura; who were enabled to reveal secrets, which baffled the skill of the wise and learned in Babylon, nay, to read out the doom of Babylon herself from the mystic handwriting of heaven on the wall--a doom, too, declared to have been precipitated by the pride and insolence of her behaviour toward the God of her Jewish captives. These wonderful beginnings of grace and power, conferred on a mere handful of those who had been exiled to Babylon, were the testimony of Heaven, that though few in number, they might still be powerful in influence; and though no longer dwelling as a nation in Canaan, or celebrating the outward ritual of Moses, they might yet be both blessed and made a blessing to the world. Nothing could have shewn more conclusively, that as the outward privileges and institutions of Israel had existed only for the sake of the internal principles of holiness they were intended to protect and nourish; so if, without the external framework, the inward result were attained, the favour and blessing of Heaven would not fail to rest upon them. The occupation of Canaan, with the whole machinery of its legal arrangements and priestly ministrations, was thus seen to have been but means to an end; and the end might be reached even at a distance from Canaan, and away from all its distinctive privileges--if only there was a return to the faith and service of Jehovah.

It was, no doubt, some feeling of this kind which induced many even of the better portion of the Jews to remain in the countries of their dispersion, after the liberty had been secured to them of  re-occupying the land of their fathers. Daniel himself, who acted so important a part in obtaining the decree of release, appears to have entertained no thought of availing himself of the opportunity it afforded of exchanging Babylon for Jerusalem; nor was it more than a small portion of those who had been scattered abroad, that from any quarter found their way back to Judea. More, certainly, should have returned than actually came, to assist their brethren in the work of re-establishing the temple-service, and making suitable preparation for the better order of things, which the prophets had foretold. But, on the other hand, matters did not at first assume such an aspect there, as to admit of all, or perhaps even the greater part returning. Difficulties on every side beset the portion who did return, and the work in which they were engaged. Their poverty and fewness were in a great degree their safety. And we may not doubt, that the hand of God was also in this. He saw it better for the great ends of his spiritual government to allow the dispersion to a large extent to continue, that the light of his truth might be more widely diffused abroad, and he might have, in all the more important seats and centres of heathenism, his means and instruments of working.

In this turn of affairs there was altogether a wonderful display of the wisdom and power of God, in bringing good out of evil, and advancing his cause in the world by what was primarily most adverse to its interests. Shortly after the dispersion took place, the relative position of the kingdoms of the world materially changed. Canaan no longer remained, as it had been before, in the centre of the world's power, civilization and commerce. The world, in its active energies and influential agencies, began to move westward; and centuries before the Christian era, the ascendancy in all that constitutes dominion among men, had become the inheritance of the Greeks and Romans; while the regions in the neighbourhood of Judea had sunk to the rank of dependent and tributary provinces. How wise, then, to direct the current of events respecting the covenant-people, in such a manner as to adapt their position to the altered state of the world's kingdoms, and to give them a place of influential working in connection with these, after they had been themselves somewhat weaned from their former corruptions, and awakened to a sense of their proper calling? They might thus, in some measure, do  individually and separately, what they could no longer have done collectively and nationally; and to some extent they actually did it. Through their instrumentality a knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures was diffused among the heathen. Proselytes in considerable numbers joined them, even in the most polished communities; and when the time had come for planting the standard of the cross in the world, there were found, partly of Jewish, partly of Gentile extraction, in almost every city of the Roman empire, the elements already existing for the immediate formation of a Christian church.

This, however, was not the whole; a change of another kind was meanwhile proceeding. By the separation of so many of the covenant-people from the temple and its rites, the bands became loosened in their minds to what was merely local and symbolical in Judaism. They could think of God apart from the material house and altar at Jerusalem, and could contemplate the possibility of religion existing in its more vital energies without the accompaniment of a fixed and stately ceremonial. The synagogues, with their simple worship, their governing college of elders, and their regulated discipline, everywhere presented a historical basis and rudimentary model for the Christian church. The worship of the synagogue (to use the words of Mr Litton) "formed the point of transition between the symbolical services of the temple and the verbal services of the new economy; and, by habituating the Jewish mind to the offerings of prayer and praise instead of the bloody sacrifices of the law, and to the ministry of the Word instead of the ministry of types, it smoothed the way for the gospel dispensation." The relation of those synagogues to the temple is also instructive, and has its parallel in the new dispensation. "However much synagogues might be multiplied, there was but one temple, one divinely-appointed priesthood, one altar; and the synagogues, otherwise distinct societies, were connected together by their common relation to the temple. The pious Jew, in what part soever of the world he might be, regarded the temple, with its priesthood, sacrifices and ritual, as the centre of national unity. Now the Jewish temple, as every reader of the New Testament knows, has in Christianity no material counterpart; it is the church, the mystical body of Christ, composed of those who are in living union with him, that is now the abode of God's covenanted presence. Hence, there being in Christianity no material temple, the visible centre of unity to the local societies which constitute collectively the visible church, there are no visible temple-services, priesthood, or sacrifice. Whatever there is in the Christian church of a sacerdotal character, is of the same nature with the Christan temple itself-- that is, it is spiritual and invisible. Christ, the only priest of the new temple, is in heaven, not upon earth; and the only sacrifices now offered by the Christian are the spiritual ones, which are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. The temple-services of Christianity, whatever they may be, belong not to visible churches as such, but the mystical body of Christ, and, like that body, are spiritual, or removed to a higher sphere." [4]

Thus, by a series of acts and operations, institutions of worship and dispensations of Providence, all wisely ordered and arranged, was the way prepared for the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What was from the first aimed at--the cultivation of personal faith and holiness--was continually brought out with greater prominence and distinctness, as the indispensable condition of such a kingdom as God sought among men. The local, the outward, the shadowy was gradually displaced by the diffusive, the spiritual and abiding. And when Christianity opened on the world with its new and higher life, it had but to throw off the shell of forms and observances, which had already become unsuitable, and expand the kernel, which lay within, into something of nobler growth and more perfect organization.

Notes

1. Nachman, as quoted by Selden de Jure Nat. etc. L. vi. c. 13.

2. History, c. 50.

3. The *** here, and at the beginning of the verse, is best understood, and is now commonly understood by interpreters, interrogatively, as in 1 Sam. xxiv. 20 (Heb. Bible) and 2 Kings xviii. 34.

4. Litton on the Church of Christ, p. 254. 618.