A ies Soss diese dad “f oe oat os Men Sey Hehe Stat ee ge Gee Hees GE cs ye, . LAN SS SS SS Ss WN eS ae RK SENN Sw wears SS NS SN SN SRN SSS SS SON SS aN SSS : o S WS oo SS “y ae MBG SS uA Ss SSS S SSS TN Sos SNA Sh FAN S “I ‘ SN = RS 4 SANS Se SSSR A eS S AS 3 SOs Ces \ 2 ; = *. she 4 A a ¢ * < , = f s P| a , - a = ’ a _ : * ‘ A 7 ry ; -_ on = 1 7 7 4, ; 7 7 * ; ’ J a LY : _ p \ ’ ” = " * . s a —_ — ‘ * t ’ . ;. ~ oe ‘ ‘a t ‘ < “4 ‘ \ : . e f ; ; wh. \ ‘ i : 4 - P . * * i > . » . ' a : 7 ’ > : = 7 ee - ¥ ‘ : 5 [ 7 on Td “a. al r y - = *% . - = - 7 s 4 \ A ‘ y _ es . - *. + .- i : # c oo . ’ 4 * i : wy - = - - - y 2 ¥ 1B{OKOUS IL. I.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ADAM. The commencement of the Mediatorial office.—The Testimony of St. John.—The Divine Government by the Angel- Jehovah.—The primeval promise.—Its gradual unfold- ment.—The conduct of Adam.—The Name of Eve.—The expectations of Eve.—Her exclamation on the birth of Cain.—The eternal purpose developed in human history. Tue Mediatorial office of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the kingdom of grace, commenced with the fall of our first parents. The language of the Evangelist St. John can admit of no other interpretation. ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John i. 18). Yet in the Old Testa- ment, various patriarchs, chieftains, and rulers are said to have “seen God face to face.’ The only means of reconciling these contrariant statements is this, viz. that from the beginning of the world the Father hath committed all judgment and the exclusive conduct of human affairs unto the Son. He, as the manifested Jehovah, has had the govern- ment upon His shoulder. He has been at all times the Divine Messenger, distinct from the Invisible 26 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Jehovah, yet Himself the very Fellow of Jehovah, bearing the Incommunicable Name, co-equal and co-eternal and consubstantial with the Divine Father, ‘the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person.” This Angel of the Covenant, by whom all things were made, revealed Himself to Adam previously to His expulsion from Paradise, as being the ultimate Redeemer and Restorer, who should bruise the serpent’s head, though in the process of His contest He should Himself receive wounds and chastisement. The inspired Author of the Book of Genesis asserts that Adam heard “ the voice of Jehovah” walking in the garden. Hence the footsteps that were heard were the footsteps of a Person denominated ‘the Voice;”’* and this voice, thus acknowledged by Adam as the voice of the very Lord Jehovah, was the Divine Word, who in the fulness of the predicted * Canon Medd (Bampton Lectures, p. 423) gives two quota- tions confirmatory of this interpretation. St. Augustine on Genesis iii. (Ad. Litt. viii., xviii. 37): ‘How then did God speak to him (Adam)? God spake to man in Paradise in the same way as He afterwards spake to the Fathers, to Abraham, to Moses, that is, in some bodily form or appearance. Hence it is also that they heard His voice, as He walked in Paradise at eventide, and hid themselves.’”? Thomas Scett (Gen. iil. 8): “Some visible tokens of the Lord’s presence, perhaps in human form, seems here intimated, of which we shall find hereafter undeniable instances, and which should be con- sidered as anticipations of His Incarnation, who is called the ‘Word of God.’ ” TO ADAM. 27 times, was found in fashion as a man, and became obedient unto death, and through death conquered Him that had the power of death. Thus to Adam previously* to his expulsion from his earthly Paradise were vouchsafed the foreshadowings of those teachings, which have ever been unfolded in increasing clearness, through the progress of the Church’s history, by the long succession of prophets and Evangelists ““who have spoken since the world began.” The subsequent conduct related of Adam and Eve, the persons favoured with these sublime communications, is consistent with this understand- ing of the narrative. This interpretation gives due significance to the apparently strange assertion that Adam, at the very moment in which a sentence of universal death was imposed on himself and his descendants as the penalty of transgression, should solemnly call his wife “Eve, as the mother of all living.” What more convincing proof could he have given of his firm belief that “the curse would be turned into a blessing unto him,’ and that the promise of a restoration to the Divine presence, and favour, would be ultimately secured to him ? 3 The rapturous expression of Eve, on the birth of her first-born son, seems to imply her own perfect participation in the faith and expectations of her * «Man was not excluded from Paradise till Prophecy sent him forth with some pledge of hope and consolation.”’—Cf. Davison on Prophecy. 28 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE husband. Her words go further than his, and show a conviction on her part that she was to herald into the world the destined Restorer of the Paradise she had lost, the victorious bruiser of the serpent’s head. The true purport of her exclamation is this: “I have gotten the Man, even Jehovah his very self.” “Such (says the learned Mr, Faber*) is the manner in which the old paraphrast understands the passage, and we may be sure that his exposition would never have been received by his countrymen unless it had accorded with the general sentiments of the Jews, his contemporaries.” Verily known unto God are all his ways from the beginning of the world. With Him is no variable- ness, neither shadow of turning. The Divine Covenant, by virtue of which, in the secret councils of the Most High, the fallen possessor of Paradise was to be restored and pardoned, in reward of the future obedience and Incarnation of one, the very fellow of Jehovah, was instituted in Paradise itself, and has been gradually unfolded through the successive Patriarchal, Levitical, and Christian Dispensations. * ‘Horse Mosaics,” vol. ii., chap. ii., s. 2, p. 55. TO CAIN, 29 I—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO CAIN. The Divine origin of “ sacrifice.’—This rite imposed on the sons of Adam.—The ‘“‘ Presence of the Lord.’’—Its mean- ing.—The meeting place for Divine worship.—Significance of Abel’s Sacrifice—Its acceptance.—The offering of Cain.—Its rejection.—The Divine remonstrance with Cain.—The perseverance of Cain in evil.—The disap- pointment, and continued hope, of Eve. Tne same Divine Person who held converse with our first parent in the garden of Hden continued to guide and instruct him on his expulsion into the wilderness of the world. In the first place, a certain mode of favourable access unto his Maker was divinely prescribed and enjoined to Adam. The Protoplast could never of himself have imagined that by an act cruel in itself, by the slaughter of an innocent victim, he could alone approach acceptably to God, unless he had been thus taught and com- manded by the Divine Person who appeared to him. The rite of sacrifice (typical, from the very com- mencement of the Mediatorial kingdom, of the future efficient propitiation for human sin) was of Divine institution, and (in virtue of the Divine command) was enforced by Adam on his children, as the sole and only channel of their acceptable worship of their Creator. In the second place, there was vouchsafed to Adam and his family, a special manifestation of ‘‘the Presence of the Lord.” It is expressly stated at the close of the third chapter of Genesis, that when the first-formed man was driven from Paradise, 30 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE God placed at the entrance of the Garden of Hden ‘“ Cherubims and a flaming sword which moved every way to keep the way of the tree of life.” The more exact translation* of the Hebrew words is this: * Our translation simply and imperfectly says,—that God placed the Cherubim eastward of the garden; but the force of the original Hebrew is, that He placed them in a tabernacle. The Cherubim then of Paradise, and the Cherubim of the Levitical economy, were alike placed in a sacred tabernacle ; and since in each case both the emblems and the position were the very same, the obvious presumption is, that the design and purport was in each case the same also. Such a conclusion is affirmed by another particular, which Moses carefully specifies, and which must by no means be passed over in silence. He tells us that with these Paradisaical Cherubim, which were placed in a tabernacle, there appeared likewise, what our translators render, ‘‘a flaming sword which turned every way ;”’ but what I apprehend may more properly be understood a bright blaze of bickering fire. Now an exactly similar manifestation of ardent glory was visible between the Cherubim of the Mosaical dispensation. By this was indicated the presence of Jehovah; and the name which it usually bears is that of the Sheckinah—a word of the same origin as that which the Hebrew legislator employs to describe the tabernacling (if I may so speak) of the Paradisaical Cherubim. When the preceding coincidences therefore are duly weighed, we can scarcely, I think, doubt that the bright blaze which appeared with the Cherubim of Eden, was no other than that fiery symbol of the Divine presence, which the Rabbins haye denominated the Sheckinah. Thus we find that as the Hebrew church in the wilderness had the Cherubic symbols placed in a tabernacle, and surmounted by a preternatural blaze of glory, so the Patriarchal church, at its earliest commencement, had the very same symbols placed in the very same manner, TO CAIN. . 31 ‘That the Lord Jehovah tabernacled or dwelt with the Cherubim before the garden of Eden, with the bright blaze of a bickering or moving sword; and learned interpreters explain these words as implying a visible manifestation of that bright flame, which we shall find in all three successive Dispensations to be the acknowledged symbol of the Presence of Jehovah.” Adam and his descendants met for religious worship before this visible manifestation of the Divine glory. To this special place the two sons of Adam brought unto the Lord their respective offerings, forit may be asked how they could possibly have brought their offerings, if they had not known where they were to bring them.* | Cain, the elder brother, brought of the fruits of the ground, and was rejected: Abel, the younger brother, brought of the lambs of his flock, and was accepted. Whatcan be the only explanation of this and illuminated by the very same fiery apparition. Such being the case, it is almost impossible to avoid concluding that their use and intent under one dispensation, exactly corresponded with their use and intent in the other dispensation.—Faber’s Pagan Idolatry, vol. i., book 2, chap. 5, p. 423. * «Tord Barrington’s Dissertation on God’s visible presence.” Works, vol. iii., p. 20. + According to Josephus, and the rabbinical traditions, the respect of the Lord was manifested by the descent of the fire of the Shekinah on Abel’s sacrifice. Archbishop Tenison writes, “In process of time, when Cain and Abel offered to God their sacrifices, the Son of God again appeared as God’s Shekinah, and testified, it may be, his 32 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE difference of their offerings in the sight of their common Maker P It is evident that Abel did not make his offering as congenial to the nature of his calling. He did not only as a keeper of sheep bring his sacrifice to the Lord. There was a deeper motive to his conduct than this. The Apostle St. Paul reveals it, when he declares that by faith Abel offered unto God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain (Heb. xi. 4) ; by faith in a Divine command, by faith in the Divine promise of a Deliverer, by faith in the appointed propitiation, by faith in the triumphant consummation. Cain, on the other hand, refused to approach his Maker in the way of his Divine appointment. Cain, the eldest son of him who was the immediate work of the finger of God, could not have been so far gone from original righteousness as to deny Godas the Creator, Neither did he refuse to bend the knee, and to acknowledge the Supreme Being, by whose bounty he was from day to day supported. He approached the appointed place of worship with eucharistic offering of the flowers of the field and the fruits of harvest. He confessed thereby his personal depend- ence upon his Maker for future, and his gratitude for past mercies, but he refused to bring the appointed acceptance of the sacrifice of Abel by some ray of flame stream- ing from that glorious presence, while he showed himself not pleased with the offering of Cain, by forbearing to shine upon his sheaves.’’—Tenison’s Treatise of Idolatry, c. xiv., p. 322. TO CAIN, 33 propitiatory victim, typical of the one great essential truth of Divine Revelation, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Unto this self- will offering of Cain, as repugnant to the Divine command, the Lord Jehovah had not respect. Yet was there provided mercifully unto Cain, a place and opportunity of repentance. The Voice, or Word of the Lord Jehovah, the same Divine Person who had remonstrated with his parents in Eden, and by whom all communications from heaven to men have been made, now appears to him, and addresses him in words of kindliest warning and expostulation. And the Lord Jehovah said unto Cain, “ Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou hadst done well in offering the fruits of the ground only, thou shouldst have been accepted. But if thou hast not done well, and hast not brought the right, and the commanded sacrifice, there is still the door of acceptance opened to thee; a sin-offering,* a lamb of the flock, lieth, or croucheth at the door ; take, therefore, and sacrifice it, and on thy obedience to * The Hebrew word here in our Authorized version, translated ‘‘sin,” is justly rendered throughout the whole Levitical code as ‘ sin-offering,’’ as in all other passages in which sacrifices are intended, and which is the sense which this passage obviously demands. Compare Exod. xxx. 10, xxix. 36, Leviticus iv. 24, vi. 17, Numb. viii. 12, xxviii. 22. Cf. Schimmelpenninck, vol. ii., p. 62, 63. Adam Clark, in his commentary in locum, says, ‘The words here used frequently signify ‘sin,’ but I have observed a hundred places in the Old Testament where they are used for ‘“ sin- offering.” 2 Cor. v. 21, ‘He hath made him to be sin (a sin- 3 34 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE. "eto ee the Divine command, the privileges of the first-born shall be continued to thee, and thy brother shall be subject to thee, and thou shalt rule over him.” Cain, however, turned a deaf ear to these Divine communications, and with vindictive passion slew his brother Abel. In spite of all expostulations he per- severed in his wilful rejection of the teachings of Revelation, and in token of his fixed and resolute ‘determination to continue his evil course of apostacy and disobedience, he “ went out,” by his own volun- tary act, from the “Presence of the Lord,” and thereby visibly relinquished all participation hence~ forth in the worship of his Father,and ofhis brethren, — who retained by the observance of the rite of sacri- fice their allegiance to the appointed institutions of Jehovah. How great must have been the sorrow and dis- appointment of Eve, as time unrolled the unworthiness of her first-born son, and exposed the vanity of those glorious and not unnatural expectations entertained by her on the occasion of his birth! What a sword must have pierced that mother’s soul, when she saw him, whom she had fondly hoped would have proved the triumphant restorer of the Paradise she had lost, and the bruiser of the serpent’s head, to be, on the contrary, the first introducer of death upon the family of man, the murderer of his own brother, the Vy ee See offering) for us, 7.e. & sin-offering lieth at the door, i.e, an animal sacrifice, proper to be offered as an atonement for sin, is now crouching at the door of thy fold.” LOPNOAH: 35 bold impugner of Divine authority, the willing exile from the presence of the Lord Jehovah, the renouncer of heavenly expectations, the first builder of a city, as if he would ayow that this world was his only home, and this earth the exclusive limit of his desires and anticipations. Eve, however, did not give up all hope of seeing in one of her seed the accomplishment of the Divine promises of an ultimate restoration of the blessings she had forfeited. On the birth of -her next son, she named him Seth, or the appointed, viz. the appointed deliverer and restorer. III.-THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO NOAH. The general corruption of mankind.—The universal Deluge,— The Divine Moral Government vindicated.—The agent of the Divine judgment.—His identity with the Lord Jehovah, and with the future Incarnate Word.—-The propitiatory Sacrifice of Noah.—The assurance of the Divine favour.—The remarkable prophecy of Noah.—Its fulfilment. THE preceding history of Cain is intimately associated with the first severe general judgment inflicted on mankind in the desolating waters of an universal deluge. Although a willing fugitive and self-made exile from the presence of the Lord, Cain became a wealthy, prosperous, and powerful Prince. Hes obtained many followers in his apostacy, and by their help builded a city, and formed an infidel and unholy confederacy, which rejected altogether the authority of the Lord Jehovah, and which vexed 3 * 36 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE with the most unrelenting hatred, and most violent persecution, the faithful adherents of Jehovah, who called themselves by the Name of the Lord. The iniquity of men increased greatly in the earth. There were giants, men of exceeding wickedness, in those days. The Visible Church became confined to one family, and that one family was so infected — with the contagion of the general corruption that the destruction of the world became necessary for the preservation of the truth. If the Church had not been saved by water, the knowledge of God would have been lost in the flood of an universal and domineering infidelity. These distressing circumstances sufficiently vindicate the integrity of the Divine justice, and show that the maintenance of the claims of the Supreme Ruler, as the Moral Governor of the World, could have been asserted by no other course than by the annihilation of a race so obstinately rebellious and corrupt. The question for consideration is this: By whom was this severe judgment brought upon the earth ? By whose hand and ministry was the making of the ark commanded, the family of Noah shut within its safe asylum, and the flood brought upon the earth? To whom does the solemn announcement refer, “I, even I, do bring a flood of water upon the earth” ? (Gen. vi. 17.) ; These words, asserting a claim to the highest prerogatives of Deity, and implying a power to exercise justice as well as mercy, to punish and to destroy, as well as to create and to preserve, do TO NOALH; Ey not concern the ‘‘ Divine Father.” Weare forbidden to accept on any occasion the direct intervention in human affairs of His invisible though infinite Majesty. The awful minister of this atfflictive retribution, announcing himself in these solemn words, can alone be the only begotten Son, the _. Divine agent, co-eternal and co-equal with the Father, to whom is entrusted by the Father the visible government of the Church, and of the world. To this Divine Agent are applied indiscriminately throughout this whole narrative by the sacred historian the Divine titles, “ God, and Lord,” being the acknowledged equivalents of the name “ Jehovah.” We draw, therefore, the legitimate conclusion that the Jehovah who commanded the building of the ark, who Himself shut up within its narrow custody the favoured patriarch, with his sons and daughters- in-law, was none other than the Divine “ Word of God,” who had pronounced to Adam a promise of restoration, who had remonstrated with the obdurate son of Adam, and who now brought destruction on the world for the wickedness of them that dwelt therein. Noah, as his first act, on emerging from the ark, reconsecrated the restored earth by building an altar, and by offering on it the appointed propitiatory sacrifice, and he received from the same Divine Person who had guarded and protected him from the commencement to the subsidence of the waters of the flood, an assurance of the acceptableness of his sacrifice, in the establishment, by himself as Jehovah, of an everlasting covenant between God and man, 38 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE es ee | ee ee and in the setting the bow in the cloud, as a pledge of the perpetuity of the Divine mercies. ‘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. 16, And the bow shall be in the cloud; and T will look upon it, that I may remember the ever- lasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth” (Gen. iv. 15, 16). The remarkable prophecy of Noah in reference to the future destinies of his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth (uttered most probably in the immediate prospect of his decease) meets even in these our times with an essential fulfilment. The Name of the Lord God of Shem, the son from whom the family of Abraham and the nations of the Hebrews originated, ever has been, and is now, blessed in the earth by an innumerable company of the spiritual descendants of the faith of Abraham, “Israelites” (in the words of Bishop Newton) “ by faith though not by birth,”* gathered from all lands into the fold of the Christian Church, the predetermined final Dispensation of Jehovah. The land of Egypt, the special domain of Ham and of his descendants, may be fitly described as “ the servant of servants.’ It has been oppressed in. succession by Persians, Romans, Greeks, Saracens, and Turks. It is at this very day ruled only by * « Bishop Newton on the Prophecies,” vol. i., p. 18. Al SHINARS 39 a Khedive, divested of plenary authority, as being the vassal of his Suzerain the Sultan of Turkey, and the merest puppet that ever occupied a throne. Japheth has been enlarged, in accordance with the prediction of the Patriarch, so that the most powerful of his descendants, at this era of the world’s history, dwell, occupy, and rule in India, the largest and loveliest of the tents of Shem. The Queen of England, in verification of this very prophecy, has within this present generation assumed an Imperial diadem, denoting her sovereignty as the proclaimed Empress of Hindostan, over the habitations of Shem. Such a wondrous connection of ancient prophecy with modern history supplies internal demonstration of a Divine pre-ordainment. Well may Bishop Newton * inquire, ‘‘ What think you now? Is not this a most extraordinary prophecy ? a prophecy that was delivered four thousand years ago, and yet hath been fulfilled through the several periods of time to this day. It is both wonderful and instructive,” — an epitome and foreshadowing of the history of the world. IV.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE AT SHINAR. The vapid apostacy.—The dispersion of mankind resisted.— Its chief opponent, Nimrod.—His vast empire and ambi- tious designs.—His probable motive—TheDivine frustration of his designs.—The signs of a visible Divine manifestation. -—The right interpretation of that Presence. bere erate ee ee ee * «Bishop Netwon on the Prophecies,” vol. i., p. 18. 40 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE eek ot ee eari Tun remembrance of the judgment of the universal Deluge was of short duration. The posterity of Noah quickly developed the same miserable tendency to apostacy and false worship, and the same claim to exercise a proud self-will, as had distinguished the antediluvial world. Not only did a prevalent infidelity obscure the pristine purity of the Noahite faith, but a direct and persistent effort was made by a portion of mankind, to resist, defeat, and counteract the fore-ordained purposes of God. Noah in his last utterances had enjoined on his people the divinely-given obligation to replenish and fill up the waste places of the earth. This revealed design of the Supreme Ruler of the world could only be carried out by a general dispersion, and occupation of the different lands. This impending dispersion, however, was peculiarly distasteful to the descendants of Ham. His grandson Nimrod, the son of Cush (who began to be ‘a mighty one in the earth” (Gen. x. 8), and who is further described in the sacred narrative as a “mighty hunter,” (or, as his Name* * In consequence of the several Appearances of the Angel- Jehovah, Nimrod, when he excogitated an apostate state- religion to subserve his ambitious projects of universal dominion, gave out that each of the great Patriarchs, and himself among the rest, was a descent, or in Hindoo phraseology, an Avater of the promised seed. Hence he assumed the title of Nin, or the Son: which the sacred historian, with an indignant paronomasia, expresses Nimrod, or the rebel against the Son.—Faber’s Hore Mosaica, vol. ii., p. 57. AT SHINAR. 4i implies, ‘‘a rebel against the Son’’), had established an extensive sovereignty over a large portion of his brethren, and had founded a powerful empire in the plain of Shinar. With a view to prevent the dispersion of his subjects, he urges them to make a permanent residence in that locality, and there to build a capital city, and erect a strong and tall fortress-tower, by which they might defend them- selves from any attempt to compel their separation. Nimrod and his associates were probably influenced by a personal motive to this course of rebellion and disobedience. They were forewarned of the future humiliation of the descendants of Ham in the inspired declaration of their illustrious ancestor “that Canaan should be a servant of servants unto his brethren” (Gen. ix. 25), and their policy was to prevent that abatement of their power, and that diminution of their authority which would neces- sarily result from any scattering of their people abroad upon the face of the whole earth. The Divine purposes, however, cannot be impeded or overthrown by human arrogance. These schemes of the rebellious Cushites (which if successful would have led to a second universal apostacy, and a second universal judgment) were defeated by the imme- diate intervention of Divine power, and by the miraculous confounding of the existing language: preventing thereby any future universal apostacy, and compelling the immediate formation of different communities speaking divers languages upon the earth. 42 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE This narrative brings its quota of evidence in illustration of the peculiar purpose of this Treatise, and witnesses to the fact that the same mode of Divine government which prevailed in the ante- diluvial world, was also maintained among the gene- rations of mankind which existed after the flood. The same Divine agent who had visibly appeared to Adam, Cain, and Noah, is again manifested, as the vindicator of the Divine decree, the supreme controller of human affairs, the revenger of the rebellious resistance to the will of God. The language of the sacred historian in his account of this wonderful intervention is especially emphatic. In the words, *“Go to, let us go down and there confound their language,’ he implies, as in his accqunt of the creation of the Protoplast, a plurality of persons in the unity of the Divine Godhead. The repeatal of the expressions, ‘‘Jehovah* came down” (v. 9), “ Jehovah said” (v. 6), “Jehovah scattered them abroad from thence,”’ indicates a visible presence of the Lord Jehovah. Now, according to the Canon laid ** «While the pyramid of Babel was rearing its head as the chief high place of the nascent superstition, Jehovah, we are told, descended from heaven, and, by introducing a sudden confusion of language, scattered the presumptuous builders over the face of the whole earth (Gen, vi. 5-9). The phraseology of Moses is very remarkable: and, as I see no reason why we should not understand it according to its plain and natural import, I conclude that a descent of the anthropomorphic Word, to the unspeakable terror of the apostates, is here recorded,’’—Faber’s Hore Mosaice, vol. ii., p. 57. TO ABRAHAM. 43 down by the Evangelist St. John for the right interpretation of these Appearances, the Divine Agent, the Minister of this compulsory dispersion of mankind, -is none other than the only begotten Son— for, no man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him (John i. 18). V.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ABRAHAM. The general defection.—The call of Terah.—His imperfect obedience.—His death.—The call of Abraham.—His reso- lution of obedience.—A succession of Divine Appearances.— At Moreh.—On the second residence in Canaan.—On the repulse of Chadomlaomer.—On the institution of the Sacrament of Circumcision.—On the expulsion of Ishmael. —On the offering of Isaac.—The Personality of the Divine Messenger to Abraham,—An account of the Appear- ance at the oak of Mamre.—Its twofold character.—Attesta- tions to the very presence of the Lord Jehovah,—The Divine manifestation on the Mount of Moriah.—Its signifi- cance.—The identity of the Angel of the Lord with the Lord Jehovah.—The testimony of the Apostle St. Paul.—The oneness of the Angel of the Lord with the Incarnate Re- deemer.—The testimony of the Psalmist, and of Zacharias. —The declaration of the Lord Jesus himself, a confirma- tion of the testimony. Arthe time of the Divine call to Terah, and to his illus- trious son Abraham, a general defection and apostacy prevailed intheearth. Ur of the Chaldees, a locality in the immediate neighbourhood of the vast irreligious empire of Nimrod, had partaken of the eeneral corruption. Terah himself, though descended from 44 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Shem, whose family had best preserved the pure wor- ship of Jehovah, yielded to the prevalent infidelity. Under these circumstances, he is summoned by the command of Almighty God to leave his native country, and to go into the land of Canaan, there ‘ to found a nation of true worshippers of Jehovah, by which nation all the families of the earth were to be blessed. Terah paid only a halting and hesitating obedience to the Divinecommand. Hesetout at the head of his clan from his native Ur, but did not extend his journey beyond the land of Haran, where he tarried to the end of his life. Abraham, on the death of Terah, became the head of his tribe and family, and he at once received a second specific and direct injunction from the Lord Jehovah, reiterating the original command to go to the land of Canaan, and reassuring him of the Divine purpose to make of him and of his seed a great nation, to be a channel of blessing to all peoples. The Patriarch had many inducements to keep him in the land of Haran: the charge of his father’s sepul- chre, the present actual possession of chieftainship over a powerful tribe, the better chance of successful conquest in a region in which his name and reputation were known, than in a land to which he wasa stranger; the possible refusal of his followers to join him in his apparently uncalled-for emigration, the fear that his flocks and herds might be worse provided for on the hill-sides of Canaan, than in the plains of Meso- potamia, On the other hand the Patriarch, instructed as he must have been in the traditional knowledge of TO ABRAHAM. 45 an expected Deliverer, may have regarded his migra- tion to Canaan as the condition on which he and his family were to be honoured by being made the instruments of blessing to mankind. This conflict of Abraham with himself was soon ended. He resolutely determined to obey the Divine command. He left Haran, not knowing whither he went. He believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. The Patriarch, on his settlement in Canaan, received a succession of Divine communications gradually making known to him, with an ever- increasing clearness, the purposes of God. The first of these Divine Appearances was vouch- safed to the Patriarch immediately after his actual arrival in the land of Canaan, at the oak or terebinth of Moreh, near Shekem, where the promise, ‘‘ Unto thy seed will I give this land,’ was solemnly renewed (Gen. xi. 7). The second Divine Appearance was seen by Abraham on his return to Canaan from the Court of Abimelech, King of Egypt, when the possession of the land was confirmed to him. ‘‘ All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever: and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth for numbers” (Gen. xiii. 14-17). The third Divine Appearance, ushered in with more than usual solemnity, and accompanied by a solemn sacrificial act confirmatory of a Covenant, occurred after the Patriarch’s victory over Chaderlaomer and his confederates. The Lord Jehovah on this occa- 40 THE DIVINE “APPEARANCE sion reveals to Abraham the future affliction of his descendants in Egypt, and defines the appointed boundaries of the land promised to his posterity, ‘from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates ;’”” and announces for the first time, the certain birth ofa son, as the assurance to his seed of the future inheritance of this extensive dominion (Gen. xv. 1, 21). On the delay in the fulfilment of this promise of an heir, the impatience of Sarah, and the self-will of Abraham, unite in devising means for the speedy accomplishment of the Divine announcements. This unauthorized endeavour to forestall the counsels of the Most High, only brings, in the birth of Ishmael, many infelicitous results and much domestic unhappi- ness to the household of the Patriarch. The fourth Divine Appearance, after an interval of thirteen years, is séen by Abraham, by which he is assured that ason by au annormal birth is to be born of Sarah his wife, who is to be called Isaac, and that in this child the Divine purposes are to meet their fulfilment. These momentous tidings are sealed by the enlargement of the names of Abraham and Sarai, and by the institution of the Sacrament of Circum- cision, as the initiatory rite of the Abrahamic Cove- nant, and as a perpetual obligation on those who would partake in the blessings promised to Abraham and his descendants. The fifth Appearance is made to Abraham on the birth of Isaac, in which he is commanded to dismiss Ishmael from his household, in order that the title of TO ABRAHAM. | 47 Isaac to the inheritance of the promised blessings might have an exclusive and undoubted acknowledg- ment. There is yet one other, the sixth,* Divine Appear- ance to the Patriarch, which exceeds in its mystical import and in its strange significance all the other antecedent communications. Abraham is impera- tively commanded to take Isaac, the child of promise, the heir of the covenanted blessing, to the Mount of Moriah, and to offer him in sacrifice to Jehovah. _ The long discipline by which the Patriarch had been trained, and his many experiences of the Divine faithfulness, secured his willing obedience to this trying communication. His faith is perfected in his works, and he has his reward in the foreshadowing to himself (and through him to all mankind) the great mystery of human redemption. This typical action, this anticipatory representation of a greater sacrifice, in the offering (at a later period, on the same mountain) of the only begotten Son of the Almighty Father, as “the one perfect oblation, sacrifice, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole * Abraham in addition to these successive Divine Appear- ances received other proofs of the favour of the Most High. The great Patriarch on three occasions is designated by a title, of all titles the most to be coveted by the sons of men, and is three times called “‘ The Friend of God”’ (2 Chron. xx.7; Isaiah xli. 8; St. James ii. 20). He is also permitted ‘to talk with God” (Gen. xvii. 3), in remonstrance for the denial of an heir (Gen. xy. 4), in entreaty for his son Ishmael (Gen, xvii. 18) ;- in intercession for the doomed cities (Gen. xviii. 23). 48 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE world,” is a fitting conclusion and most appropriate consummation of the Divine communications with the favoured Patriarch. The question, however, arises as to the personality of the Divine Being, who thus appeared to the Patriarch on these His successive visitations. Does the sacred record promote the purpose of this Treatise? Does it help to prove that the Angel of the Lord, the prime agent in these transactions, 1s himself the Almighty, Self-existent Jehovah, and ‘that this Self-existent. Jehovah is also the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Head and Saviour of the Christian Dispensation? We will consider the testimony to be adduced to the first point from the two most remarkable appearances at the oak of Mamre, and at the Mount of Moriah. As the Patriarch sat near the oak of Mamre “he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold three men stood before him” (Gen. xviii. 1). Abraham bows himself to the ground, and makes obeisance: he offers hospitality ; he waits on his visitors, and they do eat. One of the three visitors acts as spokes- man, who gives to Abraham the first intimation that a Son by Sarah, his wife, is to be the heir to the promises, and the appointed source of blessing to all nations. The subsequent events of the narrative attest the more than human character of the Speaker of the message. He is found to accept from the Patriarch, without expostulation or rebuke, the majestic title, “Judge of all the Earth.” He, further, permits the intercession of Abraham, on TO ABRAHAM. 49 behalf of the guilty cities, and claims by his own authority to withhold the threatened judgment, on the condition proposed by the Patriarch, that ten righteous persors be found therein. He thus assumes a plenary power, at his own option, of cancelling or of confirming a Divine decree, and thus ratifies the truth of the word with which the inspired author commenced his account of this won- drous vision, “ Jehovah appeared to him at the oak of Mamre.” Yet further in the conclusion of the narrative, in the account of the destruction of the doomed places, the statement is made that “J ehovah rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah, out of heaven” (Gen. xix. 24). Here surely “a most remarkable distinction is established between a Visible and Invisible Person, each bearing the most Holy Name: and this visibly manifested, Jehovah must be recognized as the Angel of the Lord, that acknowledged Minister of the Divine judgments, or of the Divine fayour.’* Again, the account of the offering of Isaac on Mount Moriah clearly identifies the Angel of the Lord with the very Jehovah. The Almighty God gave the command to Abraham Aura. gear aly ‘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.” And yet the Angel of the Lord on his own authority rescinds and cancels the Divine command. «“ Lay not thine * Cf. Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, p. 52. 4. 50 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE. hand upon the lad, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thon hast not withheld thine only son from Me”: and then “this Angel of the Lord ” proceeds further, and pronounces in his own Name (as if the supreme disposal of all events was in his hand) a multiplication of blessings. “I will bless thee, and multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, or as the sand which is on the sea shore ”’ (Gen. xxii. 18). Is not the identity between the “ Almighty God”? who first promises a blessing to the Patriarch, and the ‘“ Angel of the Lord’’ who authoritatively pronounces that blessing, amply proven? The language of St. Paul corroborates the justice of this assertion. The Apostle states : “ When God made promise to Abraham, because Ele could swear by no greater He sware by Himself, say- ing, ‘Surely I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee’;”’ and yet, the “ Angel of the Lord” pronounced this blessing. It is plain there- fore that the “Angel of the Lord” was the very “ Jehovah” who made an oath with Abraham (Hebr. vi. 13; Gen. xxii. 15, 16). The testimony also identifies this “Angel of the Lord,” who appeared to Abraham at Mount Moriah, with the “Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The writer of Psalm cv. 7, 8, exhorts his countrymen to praise Jehovah in these words: “ He is Jehovah, our God: He hath been always mindful of His Covenant and promise which He made to a thou- sand generations, even the Covenant which He a ee ele i ati iat i rm — I ——— oe ll OT TO ABRAHAM. 51 made with Abraham.” The Priest Zacharias, when filled with the Holy Ghost, prophesied of the Divine Redeemer, of whom his son John Baptist was the appointed forerunner, ‘“ Blessed be the Jehovah, God of Israel, for He hath visited and redecmed His people .... to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy Covenant, the oath which He sware to our father, Abraham ”’ (Luke i. 67-73). Do not these passages of holy Scripture attest the identity of the Jehovah, who _ had always been mindful of his Covenant, and of the Saviour Jehovah, God of Israel, who in fulfilment of the same Covenant, in the fulness of time visited and redeemed His people ? What other meaning, again, can be ascribed to the declaration of our Blessed Lord, “ Your father Abra- ham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad” (John viii. 50). How, or when did Abraham see a Divine Being, except it were the Angel of the Lord, who was so frequently manifested to him ? and surely our Lord, by declaring that the Patriarch had seen His day, asserted for Himself a oneness with this revealed Angel of the ancient Covenant ? His countrymen evidently understood His language to bear this interpretation. Impressed with a con- viction of the claims involved in these words, they exclaimed in indignant rebuke, “Thou art not fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” Jesus replied with a more explicit assertion, and with the significance of a twofold affirmation, “ Verily, verily, 4, * 52 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ee a ee eee I say unto you, before Abraham was, T am.’* En- raged at this perseverance in His claiming for Him- self the august Title by which the Lord J ehovah had revealed Himself to their great lawgiver, Moses, and desirous to repudiate.and to punish His supposed blasphemy, “‘ they took up stonest to cast at Him” (John viii. 59). Are there not, in the face of this testimony, sufficient grounds for asserting that the Divine Being who was seen of Abraham was none other than the Lord Jehovah of the ancient Cove- nant, who was subsequently revealed in the mystery of the Divine Incarnation as the J esus-Jehovah, in all times the one appointed ‘* Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 119 uF SCs ee ee * «Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. In these tremendous words the Speaker institutes a double contrast, in respect both of the duration and of the mode of His existence, between Himself and the great ancestor of Israel. piv ‘ABpadp yevéoOa. Abra- ham, then, had come into existence at some given point of time. Abraham did not exist until his parents gave him birth. But éyé éyu Here is simple existence, with no note of beginning or end. Our Lord says not, ‘Before Abraham was, I was,’ but ‘I am.’ He claims pre-existence indeed, but He does not merely claim pre-existence; He unveils a conscious- ness of Eternal Being. He speaks as One on Whom time has no effect, and for Whom it has no meaning. He is the ‘I am’ cf ancient Israel ; He knows no past, as He knows no future ; He is unbeginning, unending Being ; He is the ‘ Eternal Now.’ This is the plain sense of His language.”’—Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, p. 187. + See also Book iv. § 8. TO HAGAR. 53 a a ee ee VI.-THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO HAGAR. The fulness of the Abrahamic blessing.—The first revelation to Hagar.—The Prediction of the greatness of Ishmael,— The Omnipotence and Omniscience of the Person appearing to Hagar.—The second Revelation to Hagar.—Its syn- chronizing with a similar Revelation to Abraham.—The comparison of the two accounts proves the identity of the Divine Agent.—The fulfilment of the Divine prediction to Hagar. “Tue gifts and calling of God are without repent- ance.’ ‘‘He giveth to all men liberally, and up- braideth not.” It was after this manner the Angel- Jehovah blessed Abraham. He not only gave the fulness of His blessing to Isaac, the child of promise, but, for Abraham’s sake, He extended his eracious favours to Ishmael, his son after the law of a natural birth. That same Almighty Angel of the Covenant who had taken so conspicuous a part in the history of Abraham, makes Himself known on two occasions to Hagar, the mother of Ishmael. The first of these visits preceded the birth of Ishmael. Hagar, ina fit of petulance, or under a bitter exacerbation of soul, had sought a refuge in the wilderness from the face of her mistress, Sarah. Here a mysterious visitor appeared to her, and gave her a promise respecting the future fortunes and destiny of her unborn infant, saying, “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude” (Gen. xvi. 10). This promise implied the claim of the Speaker 54 DIVINE APPEARANCE ew SO ee to exercise an exclusively Divine prerogative in the directing, according to His own will, the future events of the world’s history. Hagar places this interpreta~ tion on the words addressed to her, and intimates her conviction of the. Divine nature of the Person who appeared to her, by her solemn acknowledgment, “Thou art the God who seest me” (Gen. xvi. 133-5 The Angel} of the Lord plainly exhibits on this oceasion two of the loftiest attributes of Deity, viz. * The impression left on the mind of Hagar is clearly inti- mated in the correct rendering of Genesis xvi. 13, ‘“‘ She called the name of Jehovah who spake unto her, Thou God seest me ; for she said, Have I also here seen [1.e. lived after seeing] God ? Wherefore the well was called, Beer-lahai-roi [7.e. the well of the living that saw God].”—Medd’s Bampton Lectures, p. 322. + The ancient Fathers of the Church, generally, were of opinion that we must assign this Appearance to a higher than an ordinary Angel. Thus, for instance, write three of them: ‘‘He who appeared to Hagar was rather a created Angel, or the unrevealed God. That He was not a created Angel, He proves from His being called God, and Jehovah, which is the incom- municable name, and has never been conceded to any creature, not even to the Angels themselves, the highest order of created beings” (Clement). ‘It is evident that when the same person is called both Angel and God, the only begotten is plainly meant”? (Cyril). The Angel who stood by Hagar was the Son of God. This is evident from the fact that we find the same person called God, or Lord, or Angel of God, but to no one except the Son of God can both these names properly be given. He alone is both; in His own nature very God, and in respect of office and dispensation, the Angel of God.— Hilary. See‘ Holy Angels, their Nature and Employments,” pp. 115-27. Rivingtons, 1875. ; TO HAGAR. 55 Omnipotence and Omnipresence. Omnipotence in. the assurance of his multiplying the seed of Ishmael, and omnipresence in having seen the affliction, and in having answered the prayers of Hagar, and thereby attests the fulness of his right to be acknowledged, and worshipped, as the Lord Jehovah. After an interval of thirteen years, on the final dismissal of Ishmael from the household of Abraham, Hagar is again fayoured by an appearance to her of the same mysterious and Divine Messenger. She hears on this second invitation a voice from heaven, by which the Angel of the Lord assured her that His protection would certainly be extended to her son, and that the Divine purpose of making of his posterity a great nation would be accomplished. This second visit of the Angel of the Lord to Hagar, exactly synchronizes with the Divine com- munication to Abraham on the future greatness of Ishmael. A comparison of the two interviews will show that the Angel of God who appeared to Hagar was none other than Almighty God. It is expressly stated (Gen. xxi. 13), that “ God said unto Abraham. Of the son of the bondwoman I will make a great nation, because he is thy seed ’—and at the very same time “The Angel of God”’ gives to Hagar a similar ‘promise of the destined inheritance of her son: thus clearly proving that the Divine Speaker, though revealed under a different designation at these inter- views, was really one and the same Being. But as “God the Father of Heaven” has never been seen 56 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Jk AE eee eS eee at any time, these manifestations must be explained as the Appearances alike to Abraham and to Hagar of the Divine Word, the only begotten Son, co-eternal, and co-equal with the Father. These predictions to Abraham and Hagar of the future fortunes of Ishmael have met their fulfilment. . Ishmael was the Progenitor of twelve Princes, whose names, chieftainships and possessions are recorded in the Book of Genesis, xxvi. 16. He was also the lineal ancestor of the Arabs, who, after his example, had for centuries every man’s hand against them, and their hand against every man, and thus, through the Arabs, Ishmael became the fore-father of those Mahommedan dynasties, which have ever waged an internecine warfare against the spiritual seed of Abraham, and which in the Hast are to this day the most determined and relentless opponents of the Christian faith. This position of affairs provides the surest confirmation of the truth of the prediction* to Hagar ‘“ that her son should dwell in the presence © of all his Brethren” (Gen. xvi. 12). * See ‘‘Mahometanism Unveiled,” by the Rev. C. Forster, for a series of interesting remarks on the continued enmity of the followers of Ishmael towards the Christians, the spiritual children of Isaac. LOPISAAC, 57 VIN.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ISAAC. The position of the Patriarch Isaac.—His uneventful life.— His observance of the ordinance of Marriage.—The first Divine Appearance.—The command to sojourn in Canaan. —The probable reason of the injunction.—The renewal of the Abrahamic Covenant.—The second Divine Appearance. —The Patriarch’s peril—The assurance of the Divine protection.—The Patriarch’s hereditary knowledge of the Jehovah-Angel. Tue Patriarch Isaac held a position entirely different from his Father Abraham, or from his son Jacob. He was not, like the first, the founder of a special family, nor like the second, an exile on any occasion from the land of Canaan. His career stands out in yet greater contrast with that of his half-brother Ishmael. No two lives could be more contrariant. While Ishmael was a man of action, taking a busy part in the world’s affairs, and laying the foundations of the temporal greatness of his descendants, Isaac was contented to live a quiet, retired, uneventful, domestic life. He was remarkable, as being the only one of the Patriarchs who secured the purity of his household by his strict observance of the Divine Ordinance of Marriage,* “instituted of God in the time of Man’s innocency.” He was qualified by this * Hence the example of Isaac and Rebekah is set forth in the Marriage Service as a model for the Christian bridegrooms and brides. ‘Bless, O Lord, these Thy servants, with Thy heavenly blessing, that like as Isaac and Rebekah lived faithfully together, so these, Thy servants, may faithfully keep and perform the Covenant betwixt them made.” 58 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE - mode of life for the due discharge of the peculiar office providentially assigned him, of husbanding the strength, and of guarding from danger, the germ of the favoured people. Such a peaceful career would of necessity be free, for the most part, from any great crisis calling for the intervention of heavenly direction. The Patriarch Isaac was, however, favoured on two occasions with an immediate Appearance to him of the Angel of the Covenant. Under the pressure of a grievous famine he purposed a migration from Canaan into Egypt. A sojourn in the land of Ham might at this period have had an injurious effect upon the religious character of his family, and have tended to the corruption of the Faith, by a contact with the idolatries of Hgypt. Under these circumstances “the Lord Jehovah appeared unto him” (Gen. xxvi. 2-22), and forbade his contemplated removal from Canaan, and solemnly renewed to him the promise made to his Father, Abraham. “Go not down into Egypt; sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee and thy seed I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham, my Father.” The second Appearance of the Angel of the Covenant found the Patriarch in a position of considerable peril. He had been exposed to the enmity and the assaults of Abimelech, the Lord of the Philistines, and to avoid collision with his war- like neighbour, and to secure the quiet possession of LOM SAG, 59 the wells of water, required for the nourishment of his flocks and herds, had retired to Beersheba. On the very night of his arrival he was assured, in his witnessing a Divine vision, of the continued protec- tion of the Most High, and of his certain safety from the attacks of his hostile neighbours. ‘I am the God of Abraham, thy Father. Fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed, for my servant Abraham’s sake” (Gen. xxvi. 24). The Patriarch Isaac, who as a youth would have been well instructed by his Father Abraham in the mystery of these Divine Appearances, and who as a young man had heard the voice of the Angel of the Lord staying his Father’s uplifted hand, when he allowed himself to be bound as a willing victim at the Mount of Moriah, could have had no difficulty in recognizing the “ Jehovah,” who at these two times appeared to him, as the very Angel of the Lord who had so frequently controlled, protected, and instructed his Father, amidst the frequent changes of his home, and through all the eventful vicissitudes of his earthly pilgrimage. We have shown, however, in a preceding section (§ v.), that our Blessed Lord claimed to be Himself the Divine Person, whom Abraham saw; and we may legitimately conclude, that the Divine Being, who confirmed the Covenant alike with Isaac and with Abraham, is none other than the Angel of the Covenant, the future Incarnate Redeemer, the Guide, Ruler and Lord of every successive Dispensation. 60 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ee a eS SS ee eee IX.-THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO JACOB. Jacob the last of the Patriarchs.—His contrast to Ksau.—His subtlety and its punishment.—His departure from Canaan. —His vision at Bethel.—His testimony to the presence of the Lord Jehovah.—The frequent instances of Divine pro- tection.—His return to Canaan.—Its contrast with his departure.—His dangerous position at Jabbok.—His soli- tude and supplications.—His mysterious conflict at Peniel. —The twofold character of his opponent.—Its significance. —The testimony of Hoshea.—Its suggested explanation.— The final blessing of Jacob.—Its legitimate interpretation. -—The gradual development and circumscription of the primeval promise-—The inspiration of Jacob.—The blessing confined to the tribe of Judah.—The immediate purpose of the prophecy of Jacob. Jacop was the last of the triad of illustrious Patriarchs. His name is ever associated with those of Abraham and Isaac as the appointed forefathers, and founders of the favoured people, who enacted so great a part in the Divine dealings with mankind. This Patriarch is described in the Holy Scriptures asa “plain” or a ‘“ blameless” man, devoted alike to the observance of his religious and domestic duties. While Esau his elder brother, a man of the field, a man of action, the very prototype probably of the bold and brave but irritable Bedouin Arab of the present day, despised the office of the priesthood, and the spiritual blessings attached to the inheri- tance of the First-born, Jacob earnestly coveted the TO ¥ACOB. 61 possession of the Birth-right.* Not content to allow the Providence of Almighty God to bring to pass, in His own way and in His own time, His fore- determined purpose, as announced previously to the births of himself and of his brother, Jacob, in col- lusion with his mother Rebekah, sought by subtlety and imposture to obtain for himself the reversion of these privileges. This unworthy conduct brought to both the offenders their respective punishments. Rebekah incurred the loss of the companionship of her favourite son, whom she never again saw after his departure from his father’s house; while to Jacob was meted his own measure, in the subtleties of Laban, in the hardships of his service, and in his prolonged expatriation. Although the misconduct of the Patriarch was thus allowed to work out for his punishment its own moral consequences, yet he was assured at the very commencement of his wan- derings of the continued favour and protection of the God of his Fathers, Abraham, and Isaac. A solitary fugitive, a pilgrim passing over Jordan with his single staff, Jacob in the first hurry of his flight had travelled many a laborious mile, through the heat and burden of the day, from Beersheba to Bethel. Wearied, broken-hearted, dispirited and despairing in his low estate of the possible fulfilment * Many precious things were wrapped in the birthright, as the priority, the promise, the priesthood, and excellent privi- leges.—Dr. John Lightfoot. 62 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE of the Divine promises of the future possession of Canaan, he laid himself down to sleep by the altar which his grandfather Abraham had erected to the Lord Jehovah in Bethel; and here, under these dis- astrous circumstances, he is favoured with an Appearance to him of the God of his Fathers. This august vision is ushered in by the sacred historian with three “Beholds,” as by the threefold blast of a loud trumpet, and brings into successive notice the mystic ladder or pyramid reaching from earth to heaven, the ascent and descent upon it of the Angel-host, the manifestation on its summit of the glory of Jehovah, the Divine Angel, the Covenant- God of his forefathers, who gave him in his hour of sorrow this assurance of his Divine guardianship. And behold, the Lord (Jehovah) stood upon the ladder, and said: “I am the Jehovah, the 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 thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth: and, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee into this land again: for I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of” (Gen. xxviii. 13, 15). Jacob on his awaking exhibited that “fear” which was always produced by the Appearance to men of the manifested Angel of Jehovah. ‘He was afraid, and said how dreadful is this place, this is none other than the house of God,” and subsequently he TO FACOB. 63 vowed the payment of tithes and of offerings unto this Divine Messenger, as unto God. Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God (the Divine Speaker in his Vision) will be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, then shall He, the Jehovah, be my God (Gen. xxix. 20, 21). These confessions and acts of the Patriarch testify his conviction that the Divine Visitor who thus cheered, directed, and comforted him in his low estate, was none other than the God of his Fathers, the self-existent Angel-Jehovah of the Covenant.* Nor can we conclude a consideration of this Divine Appearance without referring to the solemn declara- tion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. “ Verily, verily I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see the heavens opened, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John i. 51). May not this saying be regarded as a claim of the Lord Jesus to be Himself that Divine Being, on whom the Angels of Heaven ascended and descended, and to whom the Patriarch Jacob paid tithes and offerings as unto the very Jehovah ? The assurances of Divine protection given to the * It is to be remarked that the ‘“‘Angel of the Lord,” who appeared to Jacob on the eve of his departure from Laban, - identifies himself with the Divine Appearance to Jacob at Bethel: ‘““Iam the God of Bethel, where thou anointed the pillar, and vowed a vow unto Me, as the God of thy fathers, - Abraham and Isaac.’ 64 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Patriarch at Bethel were fully accomplished in the future events of his life. His protracted service with Laban was terminated by a Divine command to return to the Land of his Fathers (Gen. xxxi. 3). He is welcomed on his way by Angelic visitors at Mahanaim* (Gen. xxxii. 1, 2). On the fatal feud arising between his sons and the chieftains of Shechem, he is divinely directed to go to Bethel (Gen. xxx. 10; xxxv. 1, 2), and finally the migration of his household into Egypt on the invitation of his Vizier son Joseph is sanctioned by a formal com- munication of the Divine Will (Gen. xlvi. 3). The actual return, however, of the Patriarch to Canaan, as his departure from it, is the occasion of another special intervention of the Divine Angel of the Covenant. Jacob, who on his vision at Bethel had only possessed his pilgrim’s staff, now passed the ford of Jabbok on his return to Canaan enriched with two bands, with wives and children, and flocks and herds. He was, however, in a situation of great peril. His life was in danger. He was on the eve of an interview with his all-powerful chieftain- brother Esau, whom he had not met for thirty years, and whose displeasure on his leaving Beersheba he had grievously incurred. It was quite uncertain whether Esau would meet him in anger or in peace, * «The Angel of the Lord was, as it seems, the chief of that Angel host, whom Jacob met at Mahanaim.”’—Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, p. 53. TORTACOP, 65 $e whether he would set on his four hundred warriors to rob and reave, or whether he would condone the past in a spirit of forgiveness, and of fraternal recon- ciliation. In this painful strait Jacob seeks a place of seclusion, that he might in solitude invoke the help of the God of his Fathers (Gen. xxxii. 24), with weeping, prayer, and earnest supplication (Hoshea xu. 4). And while he was thus communing with God there appeared before him, manifested in the form of a man, a mysterious Visitor, who strove with him in a conflict prolonged through the night to the breaking of the dawn. Jacob, however, vealized under this semblance of a man, the super- human character of his strong antagonist, and demands of Him the fulfilment in His own person of the blessing promised to Abraham and Isaac, and which blessing he was at that time fearful of losing. The issue of the contest fully confirms the anticipa- tions of the Patriarch. His mysterious opponent makes manifest the impotence of Jacob by removing with his touch the thigh-bone from its socket,* ee ear ee ee as pe, Bees Ng BA AS * This is understood of the socket, in which the ball of the thigh-bone moves; and it has been observed, that such is the situation of this place, that Jacob must have been assured no mere man could have so touched it in wrestling as to have effected a dislocation. (‘‘ Jamieson’s Use of Sacred History,” vol. ii., p. 320.) May there not also be in this placing the hand on the thigh an intended reference to the oath by which the Divine promises were secured to Abraham, and to Isaac and Jacob. Was not such a custom the form of entering on a solemn contract or covenant among the Patriarchs? « Put, 5) 66 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE po 2 en ee ee eee indicating that if it had been his pleasure so to do, he could with equal ease have doomed him to a forfeiture of his life. He concedes, however, the request of the Patriarch, and assures him of a Blessing, and changes his name from Jacob to Israel, in confirmation of the truth of his promise, and in remembrance, that as a Prince he had prevailed with God; thus acknowledging that He, who under the form of a man had wrestled with the Patriarch, was very God. Jacob yet further bears testimony to the Divine Presence in his opponent by his giving to the scene of his mysterious conflict the name of “ Peniel ;” for he said, in allusion to this contest with his human competitor, “I have seen God, face to face, and my life is preserved ” (Gen. xxxil. 30). The Prophet Hoshea, at a later period, reveals yet more distinctly the manifestation alike of the human and Divine character in this persistent adversary of Jacob. He speaks of the Almighty Visitor with whom the Patriarch contended in the form of a man, as being the Angel of the Covenant, the very Jehovah, the God of Hosts; and he asserts of Jacob, “that by his strength he had power over the Angel, and prevailed; he found and made supplication to hiss he found Him in Bethel, and there He spake with us, even the Jehovah, God of hosts, the Lord Jehovah oh bh wey eS i eee I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of Heaven,” was the solemn obliga- tion laid by Abraham on Eliezer. (Gen. xxiv. 2, 3.) TO ¥ACOB. 67 is His Memorial,” that is (writes Archbishop New- come in his commentary on Hoshea) “ His appro- priate, perpetual, Incommunicable Name, expressing his essence.” How can these contrariant features in this mysterious conflict be reconciled with each other? Is there any more probable solution than the belief, that we have in this wondrous incident a preludial foreshadowing of the Divine Incarnation, an intimation of the identity of the Almighty Angel with whom Jacob prevailed, with the very Jehovah of the Jewish, and with the Lord Jesus of the Christian Church P What proof, again, can be afforded more confir- matory of the conviction of Jacob, that the Angel who had redeemed him from evil, both at Bethel and Peniel, was the Covenant-God of his fathers Abraham and Isaac, than the parting words with which he bestowed his blessing upon Joseph, and his sons Hphraim and Manasseh ? “And he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads” (Gen. xlviii. 15, 16). What more complete verification could be found of the oneness of the Angel of the Lord, with the very Jehovah worshipped by the Patriarchs P This history of Jacob concludes the record of the Divine Appearances under ‘the first Patriarchal Dispensation, and affords an opportunity of marking the progressive development of the great scheme of 5 ® 68 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE aE are a ee ee eee human Redemption. The primeval promise of a Deliverer and Restorer, at first co-extensive with the race of man, became shortly after the Noachic deluge, circumscribed and limited to the descendants of the Patriarch Shem, as the earliest ancestor of the Messias. From among the posterity of Shem, the Patriarch Abraham is the chosen forerunner of the promised Redeemer, and he is solemnly assured by a Divine and immutable oath, that in his seed should all nations of the earth be blessed. From the family of Abraham, Isaac is set apart as the heir of the promises; and of the two sons of Isaac, Jacob is selected as the channel of the destined blessing. This Patriarch, moreover, is empowered on his death- bed to announce under the spell of a prophetic inspiration the future greatness of the descendants of Judah, as the tribe from which the promised Deliverer was to come. ‘The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh (the sent one) come” (Gen. xlix 0). Thus we are enabled to trace the gradual progress, and the providential arrangements made in these early patriarchal times for the ultimate advent of the sent Redeemer, promised from the first moment of the expulsion from Paradise. This great final prophecy of Jacob would have, moreover, an immediate purpose to serve. It would tend in a pre-eminent degree to strengthen and to maintain the hopes of the Israelites during that TO ¥ACOB. 69 gloomy season of bondageand suffering which awaited them in Egypt on the death of Joseph, and from which they were, according to the Divine promises, to be eventually delivered at the appointed time, by the display of the power, the faithfulness, and almighty presence of the Lord Jehovah in their wondrous Exodus. APPENDIX A. ON THE INTERVIEW OF ABRAHAM WITH MELCHIZEDEK. Diverse opinions about Melchizedek.—The time of his interview with Abraham.—No Priest nor Prince greater in Canaan than Abraham.—The titles of Melchizedek imply a superhuman dignity—Their true interpreta- tion.—The payment of Tithes by Abraham.—lIts real significance,—Melchizedek the possessor of an un- changeable priesthood.—The Testimony of the Psalmist and of St. Paul.—The result of the foregoing investigation. A roo great diversity of opinion prevails in regard to the person and character of Melchizedek to justify the authoritative placing of his interview with Abraham among the recorded Divine Appear- ances to the favoured Patriarch. The author, however, ventures to think that no better solution of the mysteries connected with this exalted Per- sonage can be found, than that which identifies his 70 APPENDIX A. history with a visible Appearance of the Jehovah- Angel of the Covenant, and of the subsequent Jesus- Jehovah of the later dispensation. The time of this interview is specially to be noticed. The great Patriarch had just returned from his suc- cessful contest with Chaderlaomer, and the con- federated chieftains of Canaan, when he was met and blessed by Melchizedek. Now, ‘“‘the less is blessed of the greater,’ and Melchizedek by this bestowal of his blessing, implied his superiority over Abraham. Butif he were only an earthly sovereign or an earthly priest, could he have claimed to have pronounced a blessing on the Patriarch? Could it be possible that there was any Priest, Potentate, or Prince then existing on the earth superior to Abraham, in piety, or power, or reputation P He was by the right of conquest the Lord Paramount in Canaan. He was as a First-born, a Priest in his own family and clan. He was beyond all other chieftains acknow- ledged, by his reception of manifold Divine revelations, to have been in a pre-eminent manner the “friend of God.” Could there have been under these cir- cumstances any merely earthly Priest or Potentate superior to the Patriarch, so as to be entitled to receive tithes from him, or to pronounce on him a blessing P The titles of this great Melchizedekian Priest, when rightly understood, tend to assert his claims to a heavenly more than to an earthly pre-eminence. The designation ‘‘ King of Salem” accorded him in APPENDIX A. 71 ee eee ee ee ee the very brief Mosaic narrative was not an indication of Regal power, or of temporal sovereignty. Its true meaning and significance is given by St. Paul, who describes it as being first by interpretation, “king of righteousness,” and then also “King of Salem, which is king of peace.” Surely these Designations do not rightfully belong to any earthly Potentate, but are the exclusive Titles of the “Son of God’’! If these Titles had been rendered in the Mosaic record as St. Paul renders them, the common, but impossible, supposition of the existence of an earthly Prince or Priest, superior to, and capable of pro- nouncing a blessing on, the Patriarch Abraham, would never have been heard of. The payment, moreover, of tithes by the Patriarch Abraham to Melchizedek is another ‘indication of his investiture with more than a human dignity ; for tithes were never paid as a tribute to an earthly superior. They were always reserved as an offering to Almighty God, and as an acknowledgment of the Divine power and presence. The payment by Abraham of. this exclusively Divine tribute to Melchizedek bespeaks an acknowledgment of his claim to a superhuman dignity. Yet further, this mystical Melchizedek is declared by later inspired writers to be possessed of a per- petual, eternal, and unchangeable Priesthood. The Psalmist declares of the Eternal Word, ‘‘ Thou art a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek” (Ps. cx. 3). The Apostle St. Paul yet more clearly 72 ALPENDIXGAS announces this Eternal Melchizedekian priesthood. This Melchizedek is represented as “ without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually ” (Heb. vil. 3). St. Paul yet further teaches that the minis- trations of an eternal priesthood must be conducted in a heavenly and not in an earthly sanctuary, and that the true priest of the eternal sanctuary hath now passed into the heavens. Can there be, in the face of these statements, any room for supposing that Melchizedek was an earthly Prince of Canaan, superior to Abraham ? or any hesitation in accepting the Appearance of this mysterious Melchizedek to Abraham, as another veritable manifestation of that Divine Being who is alike the Angel-Jehovah of the old or the Jesus-Jehovah of the new Dispensation P Who else can reconcile the testimony of Moses, of the Psalmist, or St. Paul? Who else could rightly have received tithes from Abraham, or have pro- nounced upon him a blessing ? Who but He could have been legitimately described as ‘‘ made like unto the Son of God,” or have been said to ‘abide a Priest continually”? Who but He could appropri- ately be entitled “ King of Righteousness and King of Peace” ? Who but He could vindicate a claim to all these august and superhuman expressions of St. Paul? implying more than earthly pre-eminence, and the possession of an Eternal Priesthood which could only be exercised by Him, who, as the Divine Word APPENDIX A. 73 of the Father, the Angel-Jehovah of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus of the Christian Church, hath passed as a man into the heavens, “a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.” isto Uke < JUL FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DISRUPTION OF THE | KINGDOM. —_——_—— Summary of Contents. I. Tue Divine AppEARANCE TO MossEs: (a) THE DELIVERER. (b) Tue LawaIver. (c) Tur REscINDER OF THE PATRIARCHAL DISPENSATION. II. Tae Divine APPEARANCE TO BALAAM. Til. Tue Divinr APPEARANCE TO JOSHUA. TV. Tue Divine APPEARANCE AT Bocuim. V. Tue Divine AppEaRANCE TO GIDEON. VI. Tue Divine APPEARANCE TO MANOAH, AND TO Manoan’s WIFE. VII. Tue Divine APPEARANCE TO SAMUEL. VIII. Tue Divine APPEARANCE TO Davib. IX. Tue Divint APPEARANCE TO SOLOMON. Apprnpix A.—On THE PATRIARCHAL PRIESTHOOD. AppenpIx B.—On Dr. MILL’S REMARKS ON THE APPEARANCE TO JOSHUA. AppENDIX C.—ON THE Davipic COVENANTS. * r 7h } ‘ x y om U fl i ao : ‘ = - a 4 . - 4 i 5 42 ‘ r 5 : i 4 — - ‘ t 4 7 rh Texas IL. THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO MOSES, THE DELIVERER. Egypt the Protector of the Patriarchs.—Their later labours, suffering, and bondage.—The premature effort of Moses.— His Divine Commission from the Angel-Jehovah.—His appeal to his countrymen—His interview with Pharaoh.— His delivery of the Divine Message.—The indignation of Pharaoh.—His certainty of a successful resistance.—His immense power and resources.—His court, and army.—His knowledge of the true meaning of the contest.—The position of the two parties.—The ten plagues visitations on the Deities of Egypt.—An unexampled night of sorrow.— The submission of Pharaoh.—The liberal gifts of the courtiers of Pharaoh.—The Exodus of the Hebrews.— Their mode of march.—Their confidence.—The fulfilment of the Divine purposes.--The final fate of Pharaoh.—The Divine Guardian of the Exodus.—The pillar of fire.—Its twofold testimony.—The symbolizing the Divine presence of the Lord Jehovah.—The inspired Hymn of Praise on the Exodus. HE land of Egypt during the lifetime of Joseph, provided a safe shelter and protection to the descendants of the Patriarchs from the hostile in- cursions of the confederated Canaanites. Its rulers at a later period adopted a different policy and regarded the Israelites as an alien people, on whom they imposed a yoke of bondage, and vexed with the 78 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE rod of the oppressor. ‘The Children of Israel built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses: and the Egyptians made them serve with vigour: and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve with rigour” (Hxod. i. 11, 14). Under these circumstances, the Lord Jehovah, in compassion of the groanings of the people, in mind- fulness of His covenant and immutable oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in accomplishment of His fore-ordained purpose of establishing a peculiar nation as a channel of blessing to mankind, raised up one of the Hebrew race, Moses, the son of Amram, to be the deliverer of his persecuted and afflicted countrymen. Providentially preserved as an infant from exposure on the waters of the Nile, brought up as Son of a Royal Princess of Egypt, learned in all the wisdom of that civilized people, the successful Leader (according to a prevalent tradition) of the army of Egypt, Moses held a high position in the Court of Pharaoh. His heart, how- ever, was with his oppressed fellow-countrymen. With a presentiment of his future destiny, he slew, when forty years old, an Egyptian taskmaster in the act of cruelty towards an Hebrew, hoping thereby to stir up a spirit of resistance among his country- men. His patriotic effort was made in vain, and in peril of his life he sought a refuge in the land of Midian. TO MOSES, THE DELIVERER. 7 ened oe At the end of forty years, in his riper manhood, he was solemnly called by a Divine Commission to a successful achievement of that deliverance of | his people, which as a younger man, burning with indignation at the evil enthralment of his fellow- countrymen, he had ineffectually attempted. While tending in Mount Horeb the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses is addressed by the very same voice from heaven which had spoken to Adam in the garden, to Abraham in the Mount of Moriah, to Isaac at Gerah, and to Jacob at Bethel—and yet further he is assured of his Divine Commission, as the destined Deliverer of his people by the visible appearance to him of the “ Angel of the Lord.” He suddenly sees a bush burning with a blaze of fire, yet remaining unconsumed ; on approaching nearer to witness this strange sight, the “ Angel of the Lord ” announces himself to be the very “ Jehovah,” the God worshipped by his own father Amran, and by his illustrious forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses, in instant recognition of the Divine person- ality of the Speaker, takes his shoes from off his feet, and covers his face with his mantle, as being afraid to look upon God (Exod. ii. 7). In the later period of the interview the “ Angel of God ” reveals Himself as the Lord Jehovah, the “ Self-existent I Am,” imposes on Moses the fulfilment of His Divine purpose to rescue the Children of Israel from Heypt, in accordance with His Covenant with their fathers, foreshews him the resistance and perverseness of 80 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Pharaoh, and assures him of an ultimate triumph. Moses is further empowered to work signs and wonders as credentials to his fellow-countrymen of the certainty of his Divine appointment as an Embassador sent them by ‘“ Jehovah” to remonstrate with Pharaoh, and to effect their deliverance from his hands. The change of his staff into a serpent, and the alter- nations of his leprous and cleansed hand, were an earnest to Moses himself that in the discharge of his Divine Mission, he would be supported and directed by the outstretched arm and mighty power of Jehovah, “the Angel of the Lord” who had been manifested to him in the blazing bush. Moses in obedience to the Divine command thus solemnly enjoined on him, associates with himself his elder brother Aaron, and returns to the land of Egypt. The two divinely commissioned leaders make their first appeal to their own countrymen. They are fully aware how deeply the iron and anguish of their cruel captivity have entered into the soul and undermined the energies of their people, and that they are called to lead a timid and reluctant populace, who in their heart of hearts are unwilling to be rescued, and who would prefer tamely to continue bondsmen, rather than to incur the sharpness and perils of an encounter with their masters. Their first effort therefore is to induce their own dispirited and half-believing followers to accept the Divine offers of deliverance provided for them. For this purpose Moses and Aaron repeat in their TOSMOSES STH E.DATLIVERER? 81 ears the inspiriting message entrusted to them by Jehovah, “I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my Covenant; and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Kgyptians, and I will rid you of their bondage, and Twill redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great judgments: and I will take you to me fora people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians: and I will bring you in unto the land, concerning which I lifted up my hand to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you for an heritage: I am Jehovah ” (Hxod. vi. 5,8). No words could more distinctly announce to the assembled Hebrews the fulness of the Deliverance promised them, nor more clearly pledge the Divine authority for the perfect fulfilment of the Covenant made by the Lord Jehovah to their forefathers. In the next place Moses and Aaron demand and obtain as the accredited representatives of the Hebrew captives an interview* with Pharaoh. Admitted to the royal presence, they speak with no bated breath, nor whispered humbleness. Keenly conscious of * The late Canon Townsend gives reasons for supposing that this and the subsequent interviews between Moses and Pharaoh took place on successive Sabbath Days. (Cf. ‘The Pentateuch and Book of Job,” vol. ii., pp. 71-8. Rivingtons, 1849.) 6 82 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE their strength as the commissioned servants of the God of their fathers, firmly convinced of the design of the Lord Jehovah to effect their Deliverance, they place before Pharaoh in all plainness, the nature and the reasons of their demand, and announce to him the fearful penalty attached to a refusal of their request. “Thus saith Jehovah: Israel 1s my son, even my first-born: and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy first- born ” (Exod. iv. 22, 23). The King of Egypt, as far as human calculations were concerned, was assured of a successful resistance to these presumptuous demands on behalf of those who for so long a period had been his vassals and bondsmen. He was no puny sovereign, no Abimelech, the regulus of a petty state, and no Chaderlaomer, the chieftain by the will of a confederacy of tribal —emirs. He was the autocrat, and proud ruler of the most extensive and flourishing empire then existing in the earth. The account of Egypt exhibited in the Holy Scriptures, attests that it possessed at this time every feature of a great monarchy: in its agriculture, providing abundance for its people, and a surplus supply for other lands in seasons of sear city ; in its commerce, of spices, balm, myrrh, and slaves, commodities betokening a rich and luxurious nation; in its Court, the splendour of which is evidenced in its numerous high officers, in attendance on the person of the Sovereign, and in the vestures of fine PRO. SRO ayn Gi lie Bhd OF ES hel UG ON Ca OM Se 83 linen, the chains of gold, and chariots of State, the favours conferred by the Ruler on his servants; in its costly palaces and treasure cities; in its routined orders of priests, magicians, and counsellors, and lastly, in its possession of a powerful standing army of horses and of war chariots, the most imposing and the most expensive of military retainers. Pharaoh, the proud ruler of this powerful nation, confident in these potential resources, refuses in vehement indignation the demand for the deliverance of his Hebrew captives. His language indicates his perfect knowledge and acceptance of the true position of the controversy ; that it lay not with Moses and Aaron, the mere leaders of their countrymen, but that he was about to resist the demand, and to test the power of the God of the Hebrews. The true interpretation of his language is simply this: ‘‘Who is this peculiar God, whom you call Jehovah? What power can such a God possess, who for so long a time has permitted His worshippers to be my despised and afflicted slaves? I regard not Jehovah, who has not given to His people greatness, wealth, or dominion, as the Gods of Egypt have bestowed onme. Jehovah is unable to deliver His people out of my hand, and therefore he asks of me their demission. I know not this Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go” (Hixod. v. 2). Such were the terms and conditions of this mighty contest. On the one side was Pharaoh in his pride and strength of empire, in his long possession of the Israclites as his slaves, in his conviction of the power 6 * 84 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE of the Deities he served to help him. On the other side were the commissioned leaders of the Hebrews,confident of victory, in their firm belief of the faithfulness of Jehovah to His promises, and in their assurance that the Most High, the Possessor of heaven and of earth, would in His own time, and in His own way, effect their triumphant Deliverance. It were needless to narrate the incidents of the successive interviews between Pharaoh and the leaders of the Hebrews, or to relate the various compromises suggested by Pharaoh according to the alternations of his hopes and fears, or to describe the ever increasing alarms, miseries, disquietude and terrors of the Egyptians. It is to be observed, however, that each of the Divinely-sent afflictions afforded a proof of the power of the Lord Jehovah over the universal realm of nature, and His consequent superiority over the idol Deities of Egypt. Their Temple ceremonials, which demanded frequent ablutions, and a freedom from the taint of any animalcule, were at once arrested by the three first plagues, the pollution of the river, the invasion of frogs,* and the visitation of noxious insects. In the fourth plague Zebub, the Fly-God, was made an instrument of torment to the population, while in the fifth plague, the sacred animals, the cow, bull, “ See on this subject ‘‘The Speaker’s Commentary,” vol. i., p. 242. ‘Lepsius has shown that the frog was connected with tle most ancient forms of Nature-worship in Egypt” (‘‘Bunsen’s Egypt,” vol. v., p. 517). A curious vignette in Mariette’s LOVMOSESa 1 HE DELIVER. 85 heifer and ram, the living objects of Hgyptian adoration, fell dead before their worshippers, in mockery of their useless prostrations. The sixth plague of boils and blanes must have induced an universal sense of bodily sufferings, which none of their Deities could mitigate or remove. The four last plagues still further demonstrate the supremacy of the Lord Jehovah over the Gods of Egypt, by a visible manifestation of His exclusive Sovereignty as the sole Ruler of the earth, sea, and sky, and as the Lord and Controller of death. In the seventh plague, the word of His servants, Moses and Aaron, brought and removed, in each case at a before-appointed hour, the hail, the fire flashing amidst the hail, and the thunder. In the eighth plague the winds and the sea are made the ministers of the Divine chastisement by bringing in, and by clearing away, his great and terrible army of the devastating locusts. In the ninth plague His commissioned embassadors caused the heavens to be veiled for three successive days with a supernatural darkness,* until at last in the tenth plague, the proof work ‘‘ Fouilles d’Abydos”’ (‘‘The Excavations at Abydos,’”’ No cviii.), represents Seti, father of Raamses, offering two vases of wine to a “frog” enshrined in a small chapel, with the legend ‘* The Sovereign Lady of the World.” * Dr. John Lightfoot maintains that the Israelites during these three days of darkness, performed as a special act of obedience (Ps. cv. 28) the rite of circumcision. He refers to Exod. xii. 48 to prove that none who were uncircumcised might eat the Passover.—Works, vol. ii., Svo. edition, p. 373. 86 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE of the invincible power of Jehovah, and of His supreme authority as the Lord alike of death, or of life, culminated in the infliction upon Pharaoh, and of his people, of that sad universal bereavement of their first-born, of which they were forewarned by Moses at the very commencement of the contest. On this last consummating visitation there arose a night of sorrow never before equalled in human history. It was the custom of the Egyptians* to rush from the house of mourning into the street, and to bewail the dead with loud shrieks and lamentations. What must have been the consternation, and how deep the bitter cry, which resounded simultaneously from every palace, and every native hovel in the * The Egyptains of all nations upon earth were most frantic in their grief. When any person died in a family, all the relations, and all the friends of the deceased, co-operated in a scene of sorrow. And the process was to quit the house, at which time the women, with their hair loose and their bosoms bare, ran wild about the streets. The men likewise, with their apparel equally disordered, kept them company; all shrieking and howling, and beating themselves as they passed along. This was upon the decease of a single person. But when there was one dead in every family, every house must have been ina great measure vacated, and the streets quite filled with mourn- ing. Hence we may be assured that these violent emotions were general; and at the same time shocking, past all imagination. The suddenness of the stroke, and the immediate and universal cries of death at midnight, that particularly awful season, must have filled every soul with horror.—Bryant’s Plagues of Egypt, p. 168. TOSTMOSES SIH EDELIVERER: 87 kingdom? Pharaoh, amidst the universal confusion, is fain to acknowledge his own persistent provoca- tion of the God of the Hebrews to be the source of the national affliction. He sends in the night with urgent haste for the leaders of Israel, and bade them depart at once out of the land. No compromise, precaution, nor whisper of return is hinted at. An unconditional submissive surrender of his bondsmen to the majesty of the Lord Jehovah is proclaimed. The sovereign lately so bold in his defiance, and so confident in the protection of his idol deities humbly condescends to ask from Moses a benediction from Jehovah. The terror-stricken, agonized and heart- broken courtiers, the subjects of Pharaoh, are no less anxious than their ruler to forward the departure of the Israelites. The powerful and wealthy of the land gather round them, bow themselves down before them, bribe them to go, and force on them their voluntary offerings of jewels and silver and gold and raiment, and all other rich treasures of Hgypt, and thus according to the prediction of Moses, the children of Israel spoil the Hgyptians. Moses and Aaron in their certain anticipation of the fulfilment of the Divine promises had availed themselves of every opportunity of preparing their countrymen for their expected deliverance. While the Egyptians had been visited with wasting murrain, nauseous boils and blanes, devastating locusts, and destructive hailstorms, the children of Israel had been exempt from suffering. The three days and 88 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE A ee ee eee nights of continuous darkness which had incapaci- tated the Egyptians from any organized attempt at prevention or intimidation, had afforded them time for making effectual preparations for their departure. | They had, in obedience to the Divine command, killed and eaten the Paschal Lambs, and had sprinkled with their blood, the lintels of their doorposts. They had arrayed themselves, in expectation of a summons from their leaders, with staves in their hands and sandals on their feet, and with their kneading vessels packed with their clothes on their shoulders. They had assembled according to their households, and now, at the command of Pharaoh, and on the direction of Moses and Aaron, they commenced before the breaking of the day their joyous exodus from the land of bondage. Although numbering six hundred thousand men, besides women and children, and accompanied by a mixed multitude, a riff-raff, of Egyptians, and strangers from Rameses, they moved notas a confused and tumultuous rabble, without order, discipline, or regularity. They went up outof Egypt “harnessed,” that is marshalled in ranks. They probably marched in twelve distinct divisions, or caravans, according to their tribes and families, under their separate and acknowledged leaders. They took with them theirwives and children, their flocks and herds, exceeding much cattle. There was not a hoof left behind. There was not a feeble nor stumbling person among their tribes. Carrying in their midst the embalmed body of their TOSMOSES THE DELIVERE 89 ee ee te ELE AE nL, OL great ancestor Joseph, they went forth in calm, peaceful, dignified array, as soldiers in their ranks. or as religious pilgrims in a procession. It was a memorable Exodus, “a nightto be much observed unto the Lord ” for bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt, a wondrous testimony to the irresistible might, and to the sure and faithful accomplishment of the pre-determined purposes of Jehovah, for in spite of the prolonged obduracy, and of the sudden submission of Pharaoh, it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years of the predicted servitude, even the self-same day it came to pass that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. Lhe unhappy Pharaoh, untaught by experience, and unsubdued by the severe judgments inflicted on him, was only for a short season repentant of his provocations of the Lord Jehovah. In a vain expectation of recapturing his liberated bondsmen, he led forth his choicest array of cavalry and war- chariots, only to meet with a fatal destruction in the waters of the Red Sea. The sacred narrative affirms that this wondrous Exodus, and this unparalleled deliverance of “a nation from the midst of another nation by temptations (evidences, Revised Version), by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a stretched- out arm, and by great terrors” (Deut. iv. 39), was effected by the direct ministration of the “Angel of the Lord.” Not only did the ‘Angel of the Lord” com- mission Moses to the mighty task entrusted to him, but (oie) THE DIVINE APPEARANCE - pe 8 eS "ee the same Divine person afforded a visible protection to the children of Israel on their egress from Egypt, and largely contributed to that peace, joy, confidence, and serenity, with which they commenced their journey from Rameses, for we read (Exod. xiv. 19), that on the approach of the army of Pharaoh “The Angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud wont from before their face, and stood behind them.” This same sacred record, however, exhibits the “‘ Lord Jehovah ’’ himself as the guardian of the movements of the Hebrews in this very. same manifestation of the pillar of the cloud. “They took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness: And the “ Lord Jehovah” went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way ; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night” (Exod. xiii. 21, 22). And again, on the mad pursuit of the hosts of Pharaoh into the pathway amidst the waters, “ It came to pass, that in the morning watch the ‘ Lord Jehovah’ looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled (i.e. confused) the host of the Egyptians” (Exod. xiv. 24). Does not this alternate investiture of “the Angel of God,” and of “the Lord Jehovah,” with the pillar of cloud and of fire, the august symbols of the Divine majesty, attest under either holy Name, the sublime presence of One and the Same Guardian, Guide, Protector, and author of the LO MOSES, THE LAWGIVER. gI ee ee eee Oe ie a ae Deliverance of the Hebrews? Do not these state- ments establish the essential Oneness of the “ Angel of God” and of the “ Lord Jehovah” ? It is probable that in these manifestations “the Angel-Jehovah”’ was visible after a human form, as He was revealed to Jacob at Peniel, and to Joshua at Gilgal. The expressions of Moses,—‘ removed,” “went,” “looked out,” “troubled ””—may be supposed to denote a human appearance of the Divine Person, who was present tabernacling in the “glory of the pillar of cloud, and of fire.’ However this may be, we may assert that to this “Angel of the Lord,” the visibly manifested ‘‘ Jehovah,” the future Redeemer of His people, may be applied without doubt, and without presumption, the language of the triumphant and delivered people, “ Thy right hand, O Jehovah, is become glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Jehovah, has dashed in pieces the enemy” (Exod. xv. 6). “Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (Ps. Ixxvii. 20). THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO MOSES, THE LAWGIVER. The purpose of the Deliverance from Egypt.—The creation of a Holy Nation in the earth.—The acceptance of the Covenant.—The Wonders at Sinaii—The presence of Angels.—The prayer of the people.—The early Divine communications with Mcescs.—One very remarkable 92 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Revelation.—The promise of the Mission of an Angel.— His great Name.—The second acceptance of the Covenant. —Its Divine ratification.—The sacrificial Feast.—The grand consummation.—The larger Revelation of the nature and character of the ‘‘ Sent Angel.’’—His threatened withdrawal from his Guardianship.—A subordinate angel is announced. —The intercession of Moses.—The general Humiliation.— The removal of the Divine displeasure—The revelation of the Divine glory to Moses.—His second ascent into the Mount.—The offerings for the Tabernacle.—Its erection and Dedication.—The testimony of St. Paul.—The place of Moses asa Lawgiver.—The moral Law.—The ceremonial Law.—The social and judicial Laws.—Their beneficence. Their amelioration of slavery.—The only exception to their beneficence.—The Topical Laws.—Their testimony to the Divine Legation of Moses. Mosss in the Deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt only entered on the threshold of his Divine Mission. A harder and nobler task was in store for him. He was further honoured in being made the instrument and the mouthpiece of the Lord Jehovah, in announcing to His chosen people the Divine purpose of their exodus, and in setting forth the terms of the Solemn Covenant which the Lord Jehovah would make with them, in fulfilment of His promises to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. On the forty-seventh day after their departure from Rameses, the great Lawgiver received a Divine command. The Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, “ Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel: Ye have TO MOSES, THE LAWGIVER. 93 ee TN eg oe seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I have brought you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now, therefore, if ye 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 ” (Exod. xiv. 36). “And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Such, then, was the Divine design and purpose in rescuing by the wonders of His mighty hand, and stretched-out arm, the children of Israel from the house of bondage, viz. the creation in the earth of a holy nation,* which should ever observe the Laws of their Maker, by a stedfast allegiance to His rule, and obedience to His will; and which should receive as their recompense, the assurance beyond all peoples of the Divine favour and guardianship. The assent of the nation itself was a necessary preliminary to the establishment of this great Covenant, and that public assent is recorded as having been given on this occasion, when all the people answered together and said, “ All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” After this national pledge of obedience and holiness, the true , * It was ‘necessary, if a witness to true religion was to be preserved among mankind, that a Church”’ should be created, a body of men called out from the general mass of mankind, and the foundations laid of a ‘kingdom of heaven upon earth, in the world, but not of it.”—Medd, Bampton Lectures, p. 256. 94 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE secrets of a perfect human society, the people were favoured with a further revelation of the infinite majesty of their Divine Ruler, and with more explicit declarations of His will. | On the third day subsequent to this solemn appeal and solemn response, the Lord Jehovah spake to the assembled people in an articulate voice from heaven, - and pronounced in their ears the ten Words of the Law (or the ten commandments), and at the same time exhibited the most awful display of His Divine Majesty amidst the prolonged sounding of the trumpet exceeding loud, and amidst the clouds, and thunders and lightnings, and fire and shakings of MountSinai. The splendour of the Divine Appearance was enhanced by the attendance of legions of the Angelic host.* ‘The chariots of God were twenty * St. Stephen (Acts vii. 53) says that the Jews “‘ received the Law by the disposition of angels.” St. Paul (Gal. iii. 19) asserts that it was ‘‘ordained by angels,” and again (Heb. 11. 2) that it was the word spoken by angels, whereas the great Lawgiver, who was present at the awful manifestation at Sinai, expressly says, ‘‘And God spake all these words’ (Exod. xx. 1). The two first,expressions may only imply that when the Law was given the angels were presentin cohorts or troops attending upon the Divine Majesty. There is no pretence afforded in the record of the presence of the angels for denying to the Lord Jehovah the sole and exclusive proclamation of the Law to the assembled people. For some admirable remarks on this subject see Dr. John Lightfoot’s works, vol. ii., p. 230-31. ‘* Moses saith it was God that spake to him in Mount Sinai: Stephen saith it was the Angel, viz. the Angel of the Covenant, Christ, LO MOSES, THE LAWGIVER. 95 ae thousand, even thousands of Angels, and the Lord was among them, as in the holy place of Sinai” tise lxyvin.16, 17): So fearful was this display of Almighty power, that the favoured Lawgiver himself did “exceedingly fear and quake” (Heb. xii. 14), and the people prayed that they might not hear that omnipotent voice again, but that Moses might be the spokesman to them of the Divine commands. Their prayer is granted. Moses, summoned alone within the cloud veiling the Divine presence, receives the Divine communications. These relate either to the Ritual observances by which the holy nation were enjoined to pay their vows, and to approach to their God in worship, or to the laws of equity and justice which should govern their dealings with each other. There was, however, one very remarkable revelation made to Moses, which provides the keynote to the true position of the Hebrews in their present in- auguration, and in all their future history, as the peculiar people. . ‘Behold, I send* an Angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Take ye heed of him, and hearken who, as the apostle saith, is God blessed for ever. So thatthe great Angel, Christ, at the giving of the Law was the speaker, and all the created angels His silent attendants. “So that Christ gave the Law, as well as the Gospel.”’ * This solemn declaration is referred by most commentators to the Person of the Eternal Father. 96 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE to his voice ; provoke him not for he will not pardon thy transgression: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversarivs ” (Exod. xxiii). This Guardian Angel here announced to Moses at this initiation of the Jewish Covenant is evidently no created Angel. The exclusively Divine attribute, the forgiveness of transgression is spoken of Him. Rebellion against Him is forbidden, as He wili execute judgment, another exclusively Divine prerogative. The name of Jehovah is in Him, and that name can only dwell in Him who is of the same nature and essence as God. This solemn revelation must have been regarded by the Hebrew Lawgiver as indicating the Divine appointment of that Angel-Jehovah, who had given him his commission to his high office, and who had declared Himself -to be the very God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as the permanent guide, ruler, and protector of the favoured people. This momentous communication demands a recognition through all time of the Mission of the Eternal Son, and imparts a peculiar significance to the frequent illusions during the Incarnate life of the Redeemer, of His having been “‘ sent by the Father.”’ Moses, on his return from the mysterious cloud, recounts to the elders and people the Divine communi- cations, assures‘them of the promised protection of the Angel of Jehovah, and demands their obedience BOs OSL Smelt LAW GIVER. 97 to His injunctions: and for the second time “all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words that the Lord Jehovah hath spoken, will we dow (tixodsxxiv. 3). In testimony of the national acceptance of this Divine Angel, an altar, with twelve pillars, according to the number of the Hebrew tribes is erected, and the blood of the sacrifices offered thereon is sprinkled upon the people. While Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and the seventy elders as the representatives of the nation, on their part confirm the covenant by sacrifices unto Jehovah, and by a feast upon the sacrifices; the Lord Jehovah ratifies the Covenant by a second Revelation of His Divine Majesty: “for the Elders saw the God of Israel, and there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stones, and as it were the very heaven for clearness, and upon the nobles of the children of Israel, he laid not his hand: and they beheld* God, and did eat and drink,” in sacrificial commemoration (Exod. xxiv. 10,11). This portion of the Mosaic narrative exhibits the grand consummation of the wonders of the Exodus. It may be regarded at once, as the visible Divine appointment of that Angel of the Lord who had led the people out of Egypt to be the peculiar Guardian Jehovah of the Hebrews, and as the solemn national acceptance of this Divine Guardian, * A token of Divine acceptance.—Cf. Exod. xxxiii. 20, 7 98 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE to be the object of their worship, and the Ruler of their tribes. The history of the next few weeks reveal plainly the nature, character, and Divine Personality of this appointed Angel-Guardian of the Hebrews. On the transgression of Aaron and the children of Israel, in making a calf (or cherub) in Horeb, this Guardian- Angel appears to Moses, and announces the with- drawal of His own Presence, and his determination to send an inferior created Angel to be the captain and leader of the people, in their destined warfare against the inhabitants of Canaan. ‘‘ And the Lord Jehovah said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it. And I will send an Angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: for I will not go in the midst of thee: for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee on the way” (Exod. xxxiii. 1-4). Here in this passage is a full manifestation of the Person of the Guardian-Angel, ‘““who was sent by the Divine Father” (Hixod. xxi. 20). He reveals Himself as the very Jehovah, who had sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give to their posterity the land of Canaan—and who, in virtue of that promise, had delivered them from Egypt, and He now, as the severest penalty of their idolatry, refuses TO MOSES, THE LAWGIVER. 99 to continue to them His Divine protection. On hearing these evil tidings, the Hebrew Lawgiver earnestly intercedes for his erring people, and the people themselves unite in a general humiliation. They lay aside their ornaments, and conduct them- selves as mourners, and each man seeks the favour of the Manifested Jehovah, by a repentance of their idolatry, and by bowing down in humble adoration before Him, and by worshipping Him, “ every man in his tent-door” (Exod. xxxiii. 10). On this humiliation and repentance of His people, the Lord Jehovah, the Guardian-Angel of the Covenant, dismisses His displeasure—He “spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exod. xxxiii. 11), and He assured Moses of His continued guardianship—“and He said unto hin, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee Restaas( Hxods xxxnie 14). SeThis” (says Bishop Wordsworth) “was an act of amnesty, and recon- ciliation, and renewal of the Covenant.” Thus, that same Divine Being who had announced Himself at the vision of the burning yet unconsumed bush, as the God of his forefathers, now appears to Moses twice, as the solemnly “sent” Guardian of hig people, the rebuker of their sin, and the pardoner of their transgression. The Hebrew Lawgiver, emboldened by these instances of the Divine favour, makes an earnest supplication to the Divine Angel of the Covenant, “ beseech Thee shew me Thy glory,” and in answer to ft, 100 THE DIVINE-APPEARANGE his prayer he is permitted, under the shelter of the Divine hand, to see in a mysterious fashion ‘the passing of the Divine Goodness.” ‘‘I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with mine hand while I pass by: and I will take away mine hand: and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen” (Exod. xxxui. 18, 23). The expression “back parts” would have been more correctly rendered ‘‘that which shall be hereafter,” or in the future. The great Lawgiver in this latter Appearance received probably a preludial view of that glory which he was afterwards to witness in the Mount of Transfiguration. This mysterious vision is thus interpreted: ‘Thou shalt see the manifestation of what I shall be hereafter* in my glorified humanity, but my face (unincarnate Deity) shall not be seen.” Moses, shortly after this manifes- tation of the Divine glory, is called for the second time to sojourn for forty days in the sacred Mount. The people bear his absence without murmuring or repining, and on his return to the encampment obey * Posteriora mea, non lumbos, non suras: sed, quam desideraverat, gloriam in posterioribus temporibus revelandam. —Tertullian ad Marcian, lib. iv. § 11, p. 415, apud opera, vol. ii. Paris, Migne’s edition. Neque enim videt Moyses totam divinitatis ejus plenitudinem videt splendorem ejus ut homo, videt ejus gloriam passionis.— Ambrosii opera, vol. i., p. 806, in fin. folio. Paris, 1614. TOSMOSES LA Peel AWGivaer. IOI his commands and make a willing offering towards the projected Tabernacle, the minutest details of which in regard to its construction, furniture, sacrifices, and offerings had been revealed to him in the Mount, At the commencement of the second year of the Exodus the Tabernacle is solemnly dedicated, when the Divine presence and favour are assured to the people, by the manifestation of the symbols of the Divine glory, so that Moses was not able to enter the “Tent of Meeting, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle” (Exod. xl.35). Thus wearriveatthe second great epoch in the History of the Exodus. The wonders effected by the mighty hand and stretched-out arm have had their compensating results, in the separation of this people from all the people that are upon the face of the earth (Hxod. xxx1i. 16) and in the establishment of a Theocratic nation, through whom, by virtue of a Divine Covenant, the omnipotent government, and the great Name of the Lord Jehovah, might be made known to all nations. _ The writings of St. Paul, who was learned in the ‘true meaning of the Old Testament, identify the Lord \Jesus Christ with the Divine Angel of the Jewish Covenant. This Divine Guardian of the chosen people led them through the wilderness, and dealt with them alike in mercies, and in judgments. “In all their afflictions He was afflicted and the Angel of His presence saved them” (Isa. lvili. 9), yet St. Paul 102 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE asserts that the Lord Jesus punished, or supported, the people in the wilderness. ‘They drank of that Spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. xi. 5). ‘Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents” (1 Cor. x. 9). Again, St. Paul (contrasting the danger of those who refused Him that warneth them on earth, with the greater danger of turning away from Him that warneth from heaven) asserts, “that the voice of Him that warneth from heaven, then at Mount Sinai, shook the earth,” intimating that the Lord Jesus, of whom he spake, was the Angel of the Covenant, who was present at the giving of the Law. The great Law- giver himself is also represented as having a ‘‘faith in Christ” (Heb. xii. 26). Moses, not blinded by the splendour, nor sunk into effeminacy by the seductions of a Court, when he was come to years, “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, esteeming the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than the treasures of Egypt” (Heb. xi.). Thus does the testimony of St. Paul identify the Incarnate Redeemer of the Christian Church, with these trans- actions of the Divine Angel, whom the Eternal Father sent as the Guide, Guardian and Teacher of Moses, the Jewish Lawgiver. Moses, indeed, appointed to his high office by the immediate calling of God, and permitted to converse face with face with the Jehovah-Angel, the Divine 10. MOSES, THE, LAWGIVER. 103 Guardian of the Levitical Dispensation, held an unique position among the long list of illustrious human legislators. He was not required to make enactments out of his own consciousness, nor to resort to the ripe wisdom of his own experience, nor to draw on the treasures of his Egyptian learning. He was the giver forth of oracular responses, the channel of Divine communications, the expounder of the will of the Lord Jehovah, the executioner of immediate Divine judgments on the wilful transgressors of His ordinances. The Laws of Moses admit of a threefold division, the Moral Law, the Ceremonial Law, the Hasenpely Social and Topical Laws. _ The Moral Law contained in the Ten Command- . ments was not confined to the Hebrew people. It is of universal obligation; it is a reflection of the Divine righteousness, and the measure of the obe- dience which the Creator demands from men, as His rational, accountable, and intelligent creatures. This Law is equally acknowledged as the foundation of morals, and as the only source of the eternal dis- tinction between right and wrong-doing, by Jews, Mahommedans, and Christians. With the latter, indeed, it is accepted as a monitor of the conscience, a revealer of sin, a schoolmaster to lead unto Christ, a teacher of the necessity of a Divine Spirit to sup- ply strength and power for the due observance of its precepts and requirements. The Ceremonial Law combines in itself three dis- 104 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Sea eS Se ae BOS Ps a a ee ee tinct purposes. It is a coercive protest against Egyptian and heathen idolatries ; a severe, irksome, continuous, ever-recurrent system of religious discip- line, which a stiff-necked and impatient people would never have submitted to, except under the conviction of its appointment by the Lord Jehovah ; a wondrous foreshadowing. (in the twofold arrangement and mystic furniture of its Tabernacle, in its rites and sacrifices, in the liturgical services of its priesthood, and in the succession of its great festivals) of a later and better* Covenant. This real and lively repre- sentation by types, shadows, and ephemeral ordinances of truths, which were to be fulfilled in a far distant time by the appearance of the Archetype, by the swallowing up of the shadows by the substance, and by the ultimate manifestation of the one true oblation, sacrifice, and satisfaction for human sin, evidences that the Ceremonial Law had God for its author, the exhibition of truth for its matter, and for its final consummation the glory of God and the happiness of mankind. The Judicial and Social enactments of the Mosaic Law inculcate sentiments of personal liberty, and of philanthropy, far in advance of any other legislation, either of that or of far later times. Moses, under * « Christianity in fact is the pattern, of which, as already existing in the mind of God, the Mosaic scheme was a copy, impress, and imitation.”’—Freeman’s Principles of Divine Service, p. 151. TOEMOSES, LHESLAWGIVER. 105 the guidance of inspiration, and in anticipation of One, the greater prophet than himself, inculcates the surest principle of fair dealing between man and man. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Lev. xix. 18); “‘ Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child” (Exod. xxii. 22); “‘If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it to him by the time that the sun goeth down” (Exod. xxii. 24); ‘Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man ”’ (Lev. xix. 32); “ Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin ye shall have” (Lev. xix. 36); “Thou shalt take no gift [bribe], for the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous” (Exod. xxiii. 8). The same spirit of loving consideration governs the Law of the Priesthood. The Priest is to retire at fifty years of age (Num. vili. 25), because in a sacrificial service his stroke after that age might be wavering or uncertain, and afflict unnecessary pain upon the victim. Especial directions are given for the ameliorating the position of theslave.* “If he is * Bishop Colenso, in the first part of his ‘‘ Annotations on the Pentateuch,” has expressed in strong language the revul- sion of feeling experienced by a Zulu, and shared by himself, on reading Exod. xxi. 21, ‘‘for he is his money.’ The indig- nation of the Bishop and of his coloured friend was entirely uncalled for. The expression admits of the easiest and 106 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ill-treated, his master is to be punished’ (Exod. xxi. 20); and if he obtain his freedom, he is not to be sent empty away, but to be furnished liberally out of the flock, threshing-floor and winepress (Deut. xv. 13). Every brother who serves on account of his poverty is compulsorily set free every seventh year (Deut. xv. 12). “Thou shalt surely open thine hand unto thy brother, to thy needy, and to thy poor in thy land” (Deut. xv. 11). The equality of the bond-servant with his master is further secured by an equal right to partake of the Passover, and to share in the rejoicings of the great festivals (Num. xv. 15). Even the enemies of Israel are to be taught humanity by the example of their antagonists: for they are forbidden in the conduct of their sieges to cut down or to injure the trees that bear fruit (Deut. xx. 19). The only exception to these merci- ful and high-toned enactments is the unflinching infliction of death upon idolaters; and this command was rendered necessary by the fact that the Hebrew nation was appointed especially to be the executioners simplest explanation. The direction is, that if a master smite a slave unto death he shall be surely punished. Was not this an important mitigation of the law existing in all other coun- tries respecting the slave? But if the smitten slave lived two or three days the master was not to be punished, because the slave was of value, and of service to him, in fact ‘his money,” and he could not be supposed wilfully to have injured him, as by so doing he would inflict a pecuniary loss upon himself. TO MOSES, THE LAWGIVER. 107 of the Divine judgments upon the wicked and idola- trous Canaanitish populations. The Topical Laws of Moses demand a brief con- sideration. The minute and multifarious directions regarding the future Residential regulations of the people, given during the time they were moving about from encampment to encampment amidst the wadys and desolations of that “great and terrible wilderness’ (Deut. i. 19); the bold annexation of immediate temporal* successes and disasters to the observance or non-observance of the Mosaic ordi- nances; the denuding their border lands of their. defenders by the attendance of the male population three times a year at the site of the Tabernacle; the command to give the land every seventh year a Sabbatical rest, with the promise on the sixth year of an anticipatory threefold increase; were acts of * Bishop Warburton, in his ‘‘ Divine Legation,’’ endeavours to prove from the Laws of Moses being founded on temporal sanctions that the Jewish Lawgiver was entirely ignorant of a Future State. The traditional knowledge of a Redeemer, handed down from the Patriarchs, the very announcement of God as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob (for He is not the God of the dead, but of the living), the whole institution of sacrifice, implying the forgiveness of transgressions in the future rather than in the present world, the remarkable pay- ment of the half-shekel ‘that it may be a memorial to the children of Israel before the Lord, to make an atonement for your souls ” (Exod. xxx. 16), compel the rejection of this theory of the learned but Quixotic prelate. 108 (iE COIVINEAAPPEARANCE unmitigated foolhardiness, a very tempting of Provi- dence, unless the enactments themselves had been instituted in direct compliance with divinely given injunctions. And thus the Topical Laws of Moses combine with his promulgation of the Moral and Ceremonial Law to attest his Divine appointment as the Lawgiver to his people. THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO MOSES, THE RE- SCINDER OF THE PATRIARCHAL PRIESTHOOD. Divine origin of Patriarchal Church.—Its visibility.—Its teachings.—The Leyvitical Covenant a Restoration of Patri- archism.—Its general retention of Patriarchal institutions. —lIts abrogation of the Priesthood of the First-born.— The Tabernacle requires a concentrated Ministry.— The opposition of Korah.—Its vast extent.—Its contempt of the credentials of Moses.—Its perseverance against ocular proofs of the Divine Presence.—The greatness of the issues of the rebellion.—The fearful punishment of Korah.—His rebellion an example of the conduct in the Wilderness.—Its suppression the final establishment of the authority of Moses. Moses, the Deliverer and Lawgiver, had a third momentous Mission entrusted to him, as the appointed Abrogator, and Rescinder of the Patriarchal Priest- hood. The Patriarchal Church, instituted by God, was visible to mankind, by its Divine Ministry of the PO MOSES THE RESCINDER. 109 First-born, by its rite of sacrifice, by its ordinance of the Sabbath, by its assemblies for public worship. It ever taught the expectation of a Redeemer, the hope of the forgiveness of sin, the necessity of faith, and of obedience. The new Mosaic or Levitical Covenant was at once the restoration of a corrupted Patriarch- ism, and the addition to it of Divine ordinances typical of a future consummating Revelation. The primeval Sabbath (accompanied with more stringent obligations) ; the rite of sacrifice (surrounded with a more significant ceremonial); the reception of the promises made to their Fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (confirmed with the solemnities of a national Covenant); the recognition of the Angel of Jehovah, {more clearly manifested in his revealed Mission from the Hternal Father), were authoritatively maintained. There was, however, one radical and important change, implying the abrogation in part of the first Gentile Dispensation, and that was the cessation of the Priesthood of the First-born and the substitution in its stead of the family of Aaron, and of the tribe of Levi, to officiate in holy things. The diffusive order of the First-born, consisting of the elder sons in all the Patriarchal families, was ill-adapted to the requirements of the Covenanted nation. A permanent visible Tabernacle demanded the more concentrated ministrations of a special order of Priests, released from all seignorial or secular duties, to serve per- petually in the sacred offices of the sanctuary : and the appointment of such a standing Ministry held IIo THE DIVINE APPEARANCE a prominent place in the onerous task enjoined upon the Hebrew Lawgiver. ) Moses met with a most formidable resistance in his abrogation of this portion of the Patriarchal insti- tutions, and encountered the most serious of the rebellions recorded in the Pentateuch. Korah, the leader and chief instigator of the extensive conspiracy, was himself a First-born. The eldest son of Izzhar, the brother of Amram, and consequently a first cousin to Moses and Aaron, Korah was a man of high rank, and of great influence among the Hebrews. Hxasperated at his loss of honour in the selection of the tribe of Levi to fulfil the sacred offices of the sanctuary, he accuses Moses of selfish policy, and of family ambition, in these new arrange- ments. So universal was the discontent, and so firm. the attachment to the antient priesthood (a senti- ment even to this day a characteristic of the Jew), that two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, men of renown, with many thousands of the people, joined Korah in his rebellion. The infatuated leader, and his numerous con- federates in this revolt, had ample evidence afforded them of the Divine credentials of Moses, and that in this, as in his every other injunction, he was acting under the immediate direction of the Divine Ruler of the nation. To these very men, now so rancorous in their upbraidings, the rod of Moses had opened a pathway through the waters, when, between the rocks of Baalzephon and the armies of Pharaoh, nl OSHS.) bite eine 5 OINDER: III they were threatened with destruction. To these very men, fainting under the languor of thirst, and murmuring under the pangs of hunger, the voice of Moses announced the Manna, plentiful as the dew of heaven, and caused a stream of living water to spring forth amid the desolation of the Desert. By these very men, when alarmed at the quakings of the Mount, and at the voices, thunderings and light- nings of Mount Sinai, Moses was besought to be their Mediator, Spokesman, and Intercessor; but now when he is only endeavouring to carry out, as the Servant of Jehovah, those very laws, ordinances, and institutions given solemnly by Jehovah himself, they dare to rise in opposition to his authority, to confederate, and to rebel. There was, however; a stronger proof even than these great deliverances effected by Moses, from which Korah and his company might have learnt that Moses was acting in these arrangements under the immediate sanction of Divine authority. 5 iil. Porth. bs 2 Standard, an Eagle. & —_—_—__-—_———., 4 . ee DAN, ASHER, NAPHTHALT. g = ia . 5 b> i Ss Merarites, Zuriel, v. 35. a Spe & OMe [oe © peel Diabet pam arctan nes Se : 7; g2|= Si Sie Si | 2 als & QApar Z BE YN am @& “la » arfs ea wm Ben Q BW yy tape Ohara Plat B ies mf- ©———_! & '|____© | or = | 2 x Kohathites, Klizaphan, v. 29,30. 5 =a = iS B = REUHEN, SIMEON, GAD. ; S | =“ s bS * os Standard, a Bull. South. The extremest tent was distant one mile from the Tabernacle. Every man was to attend the Tabernacle on the Sabbath $ hence the Sabbath-day’s journey, or the permission to travel one mile on the seventh day. 124 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE —= their numbers. The God of Heaven had pronounced them “Blessed.” Well might he rapturously ex- claim, “‘ How goodly are thy tents, O Israel, and thy tabernacles, O Jacob.” But the words of Balaam at this third sum- mons of Balac far exceed any sentiments of admiration at the splendour of the spectacle of the well-ordered encampment of Israel. ‘He took up his parable and said, Balaam, the son of Beor* hath said, and the man whose eyes were opened hath said, He hath said, which heard the words of God, and saw the vision of the Almighty, falling prostrate, but having his eyes open... . His King shall be higher than Agag, and His kingdom Hah) be exalted. God brought him forth out of Egypt: 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 * The Vulgate version makes this expression indicate the office or profession of Balaam, rather than the place of his habitation, misit ad Balaam Ariolum. He sent to Balaam the oracle giver, the prophet. The AV. gives (Joshua xiii. 22) soothsayer, as if added for an interpretation of the words ‘Son of Beor.” The patriarchism of Balaam was partially corrupted by a compliance with heathen practices. He might have been regarded by Balac as a Magus as well as a prophet. “The rewards of divination”? (Numb. xxii. 7), “ the avowal of enchantments’”’ (Numb. xxiv. 1), ‘the designation of sooth- sayer”’ (Joshua xiii. 22), may afford some sanction to this suggestion. TO BALAAM. 125 Se A ee with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as alion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee” (Numb. xxiv. 3-9). Balaam in these stirring words describes the fulness of the blessings designed by God for the children of Israel; abundant fertility, powerful dominion, completeness of conquest, utter destruction of enemies, and concludes by turning against Balac the very words of the invitation he had received from His Messengers (Numb. xxii. 6). Well might the disappointed and baffled sovereign dismiss the impetuous seer in his lordly displeasure, with a responsive ‘sneer against the inspiration he now so ostentatiously laid claim to. “Now flee unto thy place: I thought to promote thee to great honour, but, lo! Jehovah hath kept thee back from honour” (Numb. xxiv. 11). Balaam, however, now of his own accord, unasked by Balac, and almost in opposition to his commands (for the words of the king, “Flee unto thy place,” implied an instant dismissal), takes up his parable again, and after setting forth his style and dignity as a prophet, declares what in later times shall be the relations between the two peoples. Carried by the spell of inspiration into the far distant future, Balaam sees how a star (the symbol of a Prince) shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre* shall arise * This reference to the sceptre connects the predictions of Balaam with the original prophecy of the dying Jacob. 126 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE out of Israel, and how this sceptre shall smite Moab, which sought to obtain by his curse the destruction of Israel. Thus, the voice of the last Gentile prophet Balaam on the hills of Midian bestows the benedic- tions of a waning Patriarchism on the nation, just about to become the exclusive recipient of the Divine oracles. His predictions would assist the accom- plishment of the Divine purposes by promoting among the neighbouring populations of Midian and of Canaan a fear of impending calamities, and by encouraging among the Israelites sanguine expec- tations of triumphs and of victories. TITHE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO JOSHUA. A short biography of Joshua.—His appointment to his office.— His credentials similar to those of Moses.—The Divine appearance at Gilgul.—The vision of #& warrior.—His glorious title—His adoration by Joshua.—(In notes) the fitness, and time of his Appearances.—His plenary Divine authority.—His directions for the capture of Jericho.— The conquests of Joshua.—An epitome of the history of the Exodus.—The continued superintendence of the Angel of the Covenant.—The identity of the Angel of the Lord with the Lord Jesus Christ. JosHua, next to the great Deliverer, and Lawgiver of the Hebrews, is the most conspicuous figure in the history of the Exodus. Of sound judgment, ripe experience, and mature age, he was the leader of the TO ¥OSHUA. 127 army of Israel, in their first victory over the Amalek- ites at Rephidim under the uplifted arms of Aaron and Hur (Exod. xvii. 8-13). He accom- panied Moses for a part of the way in his first ascent of Sinai in obedience to the Divine command (Exod. xxiv. 13), and was the foremost (Exod. xxvii. 7) to accost him on his return from the sacred inter- view. He seems to have been entrusted with the care of the holy tent of meeting, or he remained within its precincts in holy supplication, as is recorded (Exod. xxvil. 11). He was one of the twelve heads of the tribes chosen to spy out and to report on the land of Canaan (Numb. xiii. 7), when, in conjunction with Caleb, he urged an immediate invasion, and felt sure of its success (Numb. xiv. 7). He was finally invested (by the hands of Moses when on the eve of his decease, and by a solemn consecration from Hliezer) in the presence of the assembled people with the future government of the children of Israel. All the credentials of his Divine appointment to his high office vouchsafed to Moses, were repeated to hig successor. Did Moses, by a Divine command, enjoin upon the people previously to their departure from Egypt the observance of the Passover, and probably of an antecedent* circumcision? So Joshua pre- viously to their commencing their advance into SS ee eee eee * See Book ii., § 1, p. 85. 128 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Canaan prescribed to them the submission to the rite of Circumcision, and the celebration of the Pass- over. Was the commencement of the Divine Lega- tion of Moses inaugurated by the wondrous passage of the Red Sea? So the Divine authority of Joshua was consecrated in the equally wonderful opening of a safe pathway for his people, through the swellings of the Jordan: an event which takes place in the future Psalms and praises of the national poets, and prophets, as a Deliverance only second in importance to the retirement of the waters under the rod of the illustrious predecessor. Did Moses exact from his people a solemn promise of obedience to the statute and ordinances of Jehovah ? So the people answered Joshua, saying, ‘ All that thou hast commanded us we will do” (Joshua i. 16). Did Moses receive in the Appearance to himin Horeb of the Divine Angel of Jehovah, himself the fellow of Jehovah, a Divine Commission to his great task of the Deliverance of his people? so did Joshua receive by Jericho a Divine appointment from the same Divine Angel of the covenant, to his equally important charge of securing to his people the possession of the land promised to their forefathers. When the newly-appointed leader of the Israelites, on the third day of his encampment in Canaan, was sat down with his army before Jericho, and was pondering in his mind as to the best means of attacking so strongly a secured city, he suddenly has his attention called to the vision of an armed Oey, OSE UA 129 warrior,* a man who appears before him with a drawn sword in hand. Joshua, probably calling to mind the words of the Divine Angel, promised to Moses (Hxod. xxiii. 22): “TI will be an enemy to thine enemies, and an adversary to thy adver- saries ’’—demands of his Visitor, whether he came as an enemy, or as a friend; as an ally, or as an adversary P To which question the reply is made, Nay, but as Prince of the host of the Lord am I now+ * The Angel of the Lord is spoken of in the Old Testament by various names, but these are always closely connected with the design of his appearance on each separate occasion. Here, therefore, since the design of his coming was to inspire Joshua, the general of Israel, with courage and strength for the war, he calls himself Prince of the armies of Jehovah, i.e. of the heavenly hosts of God, in order that the name itself which expressed his nature, might fill him with confidence in the omnipotent help of Jehovah, and of the forces of heaven; and thus prepare him for the conquest of Canaan upon which he was about to enter.—Kiel’s Joshua, p. 173, Clark’s Theological Library. } Bishop Horsley proposes this more literal translation, ‘Verily Iam, the Prince [or leader, or captain] of the Host, Jehovah. Now am I come.”” The Bishop adds, ‘but why now? Now at this season I am come. What rendered this extraordinary Appearance particularly seasonable at this time ? Surely the situation of the Israelites, and their recent dedica- tion of themselves to the God of their Father Abraham in the rite of circumcision, and to their Redeemer from the Egyptian servitude in the celebration of the Passover. The Israelites having entered the promised land, and thus devoted themselves 9 130 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE come.” The great and undaunted general of Israel, on hearing these significant words, fell at once on his face to the earth in posture of lowliest worship and adoration, and acknowledged himself to be in the very presence of Jehovah, what saith my Lord (Jehovah) to his servant? (Joshua v. 138, vi. 1-2), and he receives in reply to his question acommand precisely similar to that enjoined by the Angel of the Lord at Horeb. ‘‘ Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.”* It is to be observed also that this mysterious warrior addresses Joshua as if he were rightfully entitled to exercise plenary authority in the delivery of his commands. He speaks with no delegated message, but as if pos- sessed of the supreme disposal of events. “See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour” (Joshua vi. 2), and he then proceeds to give, as faras human judgment is concerned, the most unlikely and improbable direc- tions towards the siege of a strong city: and yet strange and unexampled results! the perambulation a to the true God, Jehovah comes in person to give them seizin, as it were, of their inheritance, and to prepare them to dispossess the Canaanites by foree.—Horsley’s Biblical Criticisms, vol. i., p. 252. * No created being could thus sanctify the place of his appearance, and.no locality could rightly be called holy, unless it were made holy by manifested presence of God.—Jamieson’s Vindication, vol. i., p. 109. LOSFOSHUA: 131 of the city for seven days, in peaceful procession by the bearers of the ark, by the priests blowing with the rams-horn trumpets of Jubilee, and by the silent soldiery, leads to the sudden collapse of the walls of Jericho, and to its immediate capture by the invading armies of Israel. This triumphant possession of Jericho foreshows the rapid defeat of the confederated armies of Canaan, and the location in the land of promise of the Hebrews, as for a season the exclusive visible Church of God. These wondrous events are in closest harmony with the earlier antecedent history. As their forefathers did not escape from Pharaoh through their own strength, so now the children of Israel did not prevail by their own might, nor owe to their own sword the victory. They were only conquerors, as they were the appointed avengers and executioners* of the just judgments of God upon * Dr. Greaves vindicates the Divine justice in this destruction of the Canaanites. God, the great governor, who possesses all power over his creatures, may justly punish those who violate His laws. God might have destroyed these wicked nations by famine, earthquake, or pestilence; by a local deluge, or by fire from heaven. Instead of these judgments, He commissioned the people of Israel to root them out by the sword. In so doing the Almighty not only demonstrated to the whole world his hatred of the corruptions and pollutions of idolatry—but more particularly enforced on the Israelites the necessity of obedience, and the certainty of their own punishment in their apostacy from his laws. Before, however, other nations can rightfully invade the territories of their neighbours on a similar 9 * 132 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE the wicked inhabitants of Canaan (Exod. xxiii. 27; MXxIvielo): Thus we have traced the whole history of the Exodus: the summons to Pharaoh, the fearful visitations resulting from his obduracy ; the trium- phant deliverance of the Israelites from bondage ; the continued protection of the people by the pillar of cloud and of fire; the frequent rebellions and provocations in the wilderness, and the attendant punishments; the final miraculous conquest of the Jand of Canaan by the armies of Joshua. We can rejoice in the proofs of the faithfulness of the Lord Jehovah to his Divine promises, and can admire the chain of providential events which enlarged the descendants of the Patriarchs into a mighty nation, and located them in the central position of Canaan, that through them the merciful name of Jehovah might be known and magnified before all the peoples of the earth. We have seen, too, the Angel of the Covenant, the Angel-Jehovah, Himself Jehovah, to have had the supreme personal control and superin- tendence of all these wondrous events, and to have often manifested his Divine presence and interven- tion in effecting their perfect accomplishment and consummation. oe plea of executing the sentence of the Divine displeasure, they must show for the authority of their Divine ‘commission the credential of miracles equally evident, continued, and won- derful—V. Lecture. ORF OS TAs 133 The question remains for consideration whether the Lord Incarnate of the Christian Dispensation can be identified as the Captain of the Lord’s Host, who was manifested to Joshua? May not the attendance of the Holy Angels at the Birth, Tempta- tion, Agony, and triumphant Resurrection and Ascension of our Blessed Lord be considered as a proof of their homage and allegiance to him, as the Lord of Hosts? Does the Saviour himself put forth no claim to this august title, in his question to St. Peter (Matt. xxvi. 56), ‘“ Thinkest thou, that I could not pray to my Father, and he should even now (in this my hour of humiliation) send me more than twelve legions of Angels P’’ Does not the Lord Jesus, as the Lord of Hosts, exercise a plenary authority over the Angels, those ministering Spirits to the heirs of salvation, when in His final coming, he sends them forth to gather out of his kingdom all things that offend. Is there not a legitimate application to the ascended Lord of the invitation of the Psalmist addressed to the Holy Angels, as the guardians of the heavenly habitations. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye overlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory ? The Lord of Hosts :* he is the King oige lorye Psexxiv.eli)), * The parable of the Lord of the Vineyard is common to Matthew, Mark and Luke, and it is also found in Esaias. It identifies Jesus of Nazareth with the Lord of Hosts, v. 7.—The Christian Cosmos by E..W. Grinjield, p. 126. 134 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE IV.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE AT BOCHIM. The gradual defection of the Hebrews.—The Appearance of the Angel of the Lord.—His claim to be the Lord Jehovah of their Fathers.—His expostulations, and withdrawal of His presence.—The Canaanites made their chastisers.— The sorrows and entreaties of the people.—Their anticipa- tions. of disasters. Tue Hebrews on their settlement in Canaan “served the Lord (Jehovah) all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great wonders of Jehovah, that He did for Israel”? (Judges ii. 7). They strictly observed, during this brief period, the Covenant enjoined on them. They had no intercourse with the Canaanites. They gave the land its sabbatical rest, conformed minutely to the requirements of the Ceremonial Law, paid their tithes, first-fruits, and wave-offerings in devout acknowledgment of the Lord Jehovah, as the Theocratic Ruler of the State, and as the Pro- prictor of the Land. This spirit of dutiful obedience Soon passed away. The Hebrews forgot their high vocation as the exterminators of idolatry, and as the executioners of the Divine judgments, and allowed the Canaanites to become their allies and tributaries. Under these altered circumstances, in the first throes of this general defection, the Angel of the Lord, who had made himself known visibly to Joshua and had given him an assurance of Divine co-operation in his conquest of Canaan, now manifests Himself to AT BOCHIM. 135 the revolting and forgetful people. The nation was probably assembled for the celebration of the Pass- over, or of one of the other great customary feasts, which brought together the heads of their families, and taking occasion of such a gathering the Angel of the Lord favours them with an Appearance of Himself, and addresses them in words of warning and remon- strance. The sacred narrative admits neither of misinterpretation, nor mistake. “The Angel of Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you* go out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers, and I said, I will never break my Covenant with you.” Ts there not here a distinct claim on the part of the Speaker to be himself the very Jehovah who had made an oath unto Abraham, and who had delivered * Bishop Patrick in his Commentary (in locum) says, ‘‘ Who but God can speak in this style?” I made you come out of Egypt? No prophet, nor any created Angel, durst have been so bold, and therefore the opinion of most Christian inter- preters is, that it was the Son of God, who is frequently called in Scripture, the Angel of the Covenant. And fit it was for Him to Appear now as coming from Gilgal, to put them in mind of His illustrious Appearance near that place once before, of the assurance He then gave them of His presence with them in the conquest of the land, and of the solemn Covenant He made with them in the renewing of Circumcision. The Angel’s coming up from Gilgal is therefore mentioned, as a very pertinent circumstance to upbraid the Israelites with their ingratitude to God, and with their sloth in not endeavouring -to expel the Canaanites.” 136 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE theirnation out of bondage P Could any created being have presumed to claim such exalted prerogatives ? Would a mere Angel, aservant of Jehovah to do His pleasure, have dared to assert of himself that he was Jehovah? But this Divine messenger did so describe Himself: and we may be assured, that He sware by Himself, because He could swear by no greater, no superior Being (Heb. vi. 13), and that He was, what He claimed to be, the very Jehovah, who had wrought the wonders of the Hxodus and the conquest of Canaan. This Divine Messenger proceeds to expostulate with the assembled tribes of Israel, to reprove their disobedience, and to alarm them with the withdrawal of the Divine help and blessing. ‘But ye have not obeyed my voice! Why have ye not done so? Where- fore, I also say,* I will not drive them out from before you: but they shall be as thorns in your sides : and their gods shall be a snare to thee” (Judges it ; Numb. xxxiii. 55 ; Deut. vii. 2, 5). The Divine Speaker, in these words, advances in still stronger language His claim to be the very Lord * The Speaker’s Commentary gives this reading ; — ‘In a cases, where the Angel of the Lord delivers a message, He does it, as here, as if God Himself were speaking, without the intervening words, ‘thus saith the Lord,’ which are used in the case of prophets.” —Speaker’s Commentary, vol. ii., p. 13. If indeed we once admit, in the Old Testament, an Angel of the Lord with the appellation of Jehovah, all such passages are plain enough. AT BOCHIM. 137 rr ee NN re shee FO, 4 Fay ny oe Jehovah of the Hebrews, by declaring that their fate is in His hands, and that on the removal of His pro- tection they should no longer meet with an assured success in their conflicts with the inhabitants of Canaan. The conduct of the people to whom these pathetic remonstrances are addressed attests their convictions, that the all-powerful Being, who thus appealed to them, was no other than the great and gracious God, who in faithful fulfilment of the oath which he sware unto Abraham had brought them from the tyranny of Hgypt to the possession of Canaan. They, as their fathers had done ona similar occasion of remonstrance (Exod. xxxiii. 1-4) lifted up their voices and wept (Judges ii. 4). They argued from the past to the present, and (at least for the moment) were con- vinced that as all good things promised by this Almighty Angel of Jehovah had come to pass, so assuredly would the penalties and sufferings now announced to them be inevitably fulfilled. It were superfluous on this occasion to repeat what has been already proven, that this Divine Angel of Jehovah, who was Himself Jehovah, and by whom all the covenant dealings between God and the children of Israel had been transacted, is none other but He, the man Christ Jesus, who alone has been seen of men, the only manifested Mediator alike of the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. 138 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE V.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO GIDEON. The national sin brings national suffering.—The oppressions by the Midianites.—Its severity.—The message of rebuke, and message of deliverance.—Gideon a second Joshua.— The similar evidences.of their Divine commissions.—The Appearance of the Angel-Jehovah.—His dealings with Gideon.—Testimonies to His Human and Divine mani- festations.—The subsequent achievements of Gideon.— The importance of his victories—-Their lasting com- memoration. Tue sorrow and repentance of the Hebrews under the solemn warnings of the Divine Angel at Bochim were short-lived and evanescent. The nation soon relapsed into its former evil practices. They made marriages with the daughters of the land, forgot the Lord their God, served Baalim, and refused to dis- charge the high duties for which they were placed in Canaan. The national sin was quickly followed by national suffering, in grievous intestine commotions, in the horrors of civil wars, and in the prevalence of an universal anarchy. The nation was further punished by successive invasions, and by the most cruel oppressions from the re-invigorated armies of the original inhabitants of the land (Judges ii. 11). The most fierce and relentless of these “ spoilers ” were Chushan-rishathaim, king of Mesopotamia, Eglon, king of Moab, and Sisera, the famous captain of the war-chariots of Jabin, king of Hazor. The TO GIDEON. 139 oppression of the Hebrews, however, in the fourth great wave of invasion, to which they were subjected by the Midianites, seems to have been more severe than under any of their preceding conquerors. The people were completely subdued. Their standing crops were ravaged, their ingathered harvest seized, their flocks and herds captured. They were driven for refuge to the mountains, dens, and caves of the earth, and were exposed to the dread penalties of an abiding scarcity. These severe afflictions wrought the merciful purposes for which they were sent; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord Jehovah (Judges vi. 7). Nor did they appeal to Heaven in vain. The Lord Jehovah was mindful of His covenant. He sent them, in the words of Bishop Hall,* “ first His Prophet with a message of rebuke, and then His Angel with a message of deliverance.” The name of the prophet sent on this occasion is not mentioned in the sacred record. His chief mission was to reprove the people for their idolatries, and to induce in them a spirit of reformation and repentance. It pleased the Lord Jehovah, on this temporary amendment of the people, to raise up a second Joshua for their rescue and preservation. The Divine commission of the first mighty leader of the successiul armies of Israel had been attested by the rr ee ee * « Contemplations,” Book ix., c. 6. 140 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE evidence of miracle, by the use of the most unlikely means of conquest, by the unlooked-for completeness of his victories, by the capture and slaughter of the kings of Canaan, by an Appearance to him, in a special interview, of the very person of the Angel- Jehovah, as an earnest and pledge of His mighty help and co-operation. So also was Gideon, the new champion of Israel, equally favoured with similar proofs of his Divine appointment. The double miracles of the wet fleece, and of the dry ground; of the dew-covered earth, and of the unmoistened fleece ; the unlikely chance of a brave and numerous army being -utterly defeated by the sound of trumpets and flashing of torches, the ruinous dis- comfiture of his foes, the capture and slaughter of “Oreb and Zeeb, of Zebah and of Zalmunna,” the manifestation of the Angel-Jehovah at Ophrah, all unite to show that Gideon was raised up to lead his countrymen to a renewed effort to fulfil the high duties assigned to them. While the chosen chieftain was beating out with his staff* or flail some small quantity of wheat which he had contrived to conceal in his winepress from. his oppressors, the “Angel of the Lord” came and * The ordinary mode of threshing among the Israelites was the treading out the grain by the feet of oxen, in the barn, or threshing floor (Deut. xxv. 4). Gideon only uses his staff, as having a small quantity to thresh; and works in his winepress, for safety and concealment. LOLGIDEON} I4I aa ee sate under an oak or terebinth-tree, which was in Ophrah, near the spot at which Gideon was em- ployed. He addresses Gideon, and announces to him his Divine appointment as the chosen Deliverer of Israel. “The Lord (J ehovah) is with thee, thou mighty man of valour” (Judges vi. 12). “Go in this thy (divinely given) might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Have not I sent thee P” Gideon pleads, even as Moses did at Horeb, his unworthiness to discharge the high office to which he was called. “O Lord Jehovah, wherewith shall I serve {srael? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house ”’ (Judges vi. 15); and he receives in reply the assur- ance of Divine protection. « Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man’”’ (Judges vi. 16). And yet further, on Gideon making a sacrifice unto God, the Angel-Jehovah brought forth, by the staff that was in his hand, fire from the rock to consume his offerings”’ (Judges vi. 19-26). The chieftain acknowledges as in a moment this well-recognized symbol of the presence of the Divine Shekinah indicative of the majesty of God, and at last addresses his sublime visitor with the title of Jehovah. “Alas! O my Lord Jehovah,* because that I have seen the Angel of Jehovah face to face.” He receives, however, a renewed assurance of the Divine favour, for the sacred record directly ea Sts ee ee a * Cf. note on Adonai, in the Preface, p. 6. 142 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE asserts (Judges vi. 23), ‘Jehovah said unto him, Peace be unto thee, fear not: * thou shalt not die.” And Gideon built an altar there to Jehovah, and called it ‘‘ Jehovah-shalom, in commemoration that Jehovah had promised peace to him.” There is, in this remarkable manifestation to Gideon, every credential by which the presence of the Angel-Jehovah was customarily recognized. There are unmistakable tokens of His haman Appear- ance. “He came;” “He sate under the terebinth- tree;”” ‘He looked on the chosen chieftain ;”’ “He addressed him in speech, to which he was permitted to make reply.” ‘These were such sufficient testimonies to the verity of his manifesta- tion in the human form, that the wary and judicious Bishop Hall + ventures to write of him, “This Angel was homely and familiar, taking upon him for a time a resemblance of that flesh whereof he would after- wards take the substance.’ Here were also the most undeniable credentials of the ineffable Majesty of God—viz. the mysterious flame out of the rock of stone, the reception without rebuke of the Name of PEP OMeB Ur nas eae Ltr ak ls re ets OE * Jehovah, as Gideon well knew, had said to Moses, ‘‘ Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live” (Exod. xxxili, 20). Hence originated his dread: but if he believed the apparition to be only a created Angel like one of those whom Jacob beheld at Mahanaim, he could no more have apprehended any danger than Jacob then did.—Faber’s Hore Mosaica, vol. ii., p. 109. } Cf. Bp. Hall’s “ Contemplations,’’ Book ix., ¢. 5. TO GIDEON, 143 Jehovah from Gideon, and of the homage of Divine adoration from his hands, when he erected hig memorial altar, and called it Jehovah-shalom. Gideon, in virtue of the strength thus divinely imparted to him, went forth as the servant and champion of the Lord Jehovah. By a strict obedi- ence to the Divine injunctions, and by a lively faith in the promises of God, he was successful in all his achievements, in his midnight destruction of the altar of Baal, in his discomfiture of the host, in his capture of the kings of Midian, and in his visiting with a well-merited chastisement the reviling rulers of Succoth and Penuel. The occasion of this Deliverance vouchsafed to the nation by the hand of Gideon was worthy of the Divine intervention, for it may be said to have intimately concerned the whole race of mankind. On the success or defeat of Gideon depended the continuance or the extinction of the Hebrews, and the consequent failure or accomplishment of the Divine purposes associated with their name and nation. So severe was the oppression of the Midianites, so vast the confederation of their armies, so complete and widespread their possession of the Jand, that the Hebrews must have been degraded into a class of helots, even if they had escaped an entire extermination, unless at this crisis of their fate they had received assistance from on High, and had secured under the resistless arm of the divinely- commissioned Gideon such a thorough subjugation 144 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE of the Midianites “ that they lifted up their heads no more” (Judges viii. 28); and such an interval of quietness and respite from suffering was secured unto the Israelities, as enabled them to renew their courage and to recruit their armies. The victories of Gideon found a place in the future songs and thanksgivings of his countrymen... ‘‘Do unto them as unto the Midianites; make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and Zalmunna : who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession” (Ps. Ixxxiii. 11, 12). VI.-THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO MANOAH, AND TO MANOAH’S WIFE. The Philistian oppression.—Announcement of the birth of Samson.—Divine Appearance to the Wife of Manoah, and to Manoah.—His union of an human and Divine manifestation.—His Name.—His acceptance of Sacrifice.— His wondrous departure.—The adoration of Manoah.— The greater faith of his wife.—Her final convictions on the Divine Appearance.—The fulfilment of the predictions regarding the son of Manoah.—His true position towards the Philistines.—The identity of the Angel-Jehovah with the future Redeemer. Tue victories of Gideon had freed the Hastern and Northern Israelites from the yoke of Midian. A few years later, the successful prowess of Jephthah reduced the power of the Ammonites over the more Southern TO MANOAH. 145 districts of Canaan. The inhabitants of the south- western portion of the land were forewarned (J udges xiii. 1) that they were to be subject to the Philistines for the space of forty years. At the very commence- ment, however, of this threatened Philistian domina- tion, the hopes of the nation were excited, and their fears allayed by the solemn announcement of the birth of one “who should begin to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines” (Judges xiii. 5). A certain godly matron, the wife of Manoah, a chieftain of the tribe of Dan, who though advanced in years had been hitherto childless, is chosen to be the mother of this promised avenger of his country- men. A mysterious visitor appeared to her, and greeted her with a salutation from heaven: “Behold now, thou art barren and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive and bear a son,” and laid upon herself and her promised child the strictest and perpetual observance of the vows* of aNazarite; the abstention of all fruit of the vine “from the kernel to the husk,” the consecration of the hair of the head, and a personal holy dedication to the Lord Jehovah. This same mysterious visitor afterwards appeared to Manoah himself, and charged him to enforce on his wife and child the strictest observance of these Nazaritish obligations. This mysterious visitor, it is to be observed, was Co SSS SSS a a a a a * The vows of the Nazarites are set forth, Numb. vi. 10 146 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE seen both by Manoah and his wife on his first appear- ance to them, as invested with a human form. “And the woman made haste and ran, and showed her husband, and said to him, Behold, the man * hath appeared unto me, that came unto me the other day: and Manoah arose, and went after his wife, and came to the man, and said to him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? and he said ‘Iam’” (J udges xu. 10,11). And yet this same visitor in the later part of this history is discovered as uniting with his manhood, the ineffable majesty, and the inherent Name, authority and power of the God of Israel. When Manoah inquired with incipient sentiments of awe the Name (the essential nature) of this mysterious visitor, He replied that his Name was “Wonderful,’”’+ assuming for himself one of the loftiest attributes of Almighty God. The further revelations of the acts of this exalted visitor are consistent with His highest claims: for when Manoah took a kid, with a meal- offering, and made a sacrifice unto this visitor as to Jehovah, He did{ a wonderful thing in their sight, wee ee a * The phenomena are those of a distinctly Divine manifes- tation: that is, of a Divine Personality in a visible form, distinctly human, but distinctly majestic.—Medd, Bampton Lectures, p. 211. } This shows (says Bishop Patrick, in locum), that it was the Lord Jehovah himself; i.e. the Word of God, the Messiag, unto whom the prophet Hsaias gives the Name, Wonderful. { Bishop Horsley thus renders this 19th verse, ... ‘offered to Jehovah, who did a wonderful thing while Manoah and his wife TO MANOAH. 147 and ascended into heaven in the manifestation of the Divine Shekinah, amidst the flame of the fire upon the altar. Manoah at that awful spectacle falls on his face to the ground (as Moses, Balaam, Joshua and Gideon had done) ina posture of devoutest adoration, and expresses his apprehension lest this sight of this Angel of the Lord, or this Angel-Jehovah, should impose on himself and on his wife the penalty of death. ‘ We shall surely die, because we have seen God” (Judges xiii, 22). It was the privilege of the wife of Manoah, with a firmer faith and a more enlightened discernment of the Divine purposes than her husband, to comfort and support him under his apprehensions by her gentle and rightly reasoned remonstrance: “If Jehovah were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt-offering and a meat-offering at our hands, neither would he have showed us of all these things, nor would he as at this time have told us of such things as these,” alluding to the Divine promise to her of a son, and therefore of the continued preservation of her life (Judges xiii. 23). The wife of Manoah in this address, on a retrospect of all that had occurred, plainly asserts that this august visitor, who at his first approaching had conversed with her as a man, and had announced to her the honours of her coming maternity, and ae ere oe renee SO eC EET he Se looked on.” The word Angel does not appear in the original Hebrew. It is Jehovah himself who does wondrously, but the Angel of the Lord is this Jehoyah. a 148 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE imposed on her the observance of her Nazaritish vow, was also the very Jehovah who had accepted their burnt-offering. This history attests that this mys- terious visitor to Manoah and to his wife, this Angel of the Lord, united in His own person a visible manifestation of an assumed manhood, with the most wondrous exhibition of his splendour, glory, and infinite power as Jehovah. Bishop Hall,* in his ‘““Contemplations,’ makes a remark appropriate to this history: “ There was never any of those who were miraculously conceived, whose lives were not notable and singular. Of such, for instance, were Isaac, Samuel, and John the Baptist. The son of Manvah was no exception to the rule. He carried out in his life the predictions spoken of him before he was conceived in the womb.” The full deliverance of Israel out of the hands of the Philistines was too great an honour for one so strong, and yet so weak, so Herculean in his frame, and yet so subservient to his passing inclinations, as this son of Manoah. Samson fought no important battle, and gained no victory, but from his earliest manhood he carried on an unceasing guerilla warfare disastrous to the Philistines. He proved himself a very hammer against their country. In the strictest accordance with the declaration to his parents prior to his birth, he-galled, vexed, and harassed the Philis- tines, and ‘‘ began to deliver the Israelites out of * Bishop Hall’s ‘‘ Contemplations,’’ Book 10, c. 11. TO MANOAH. 149 their hands,” by slaying thirty of their chiefs at Askelon (Judges xiv. 19), by destroying their harvests with crafty stratagems (Judges xiv. 35), by “ smiting hip and thigh ” with a great indignation the mur- derers of his Timnite Father-in-law : by slaughtering a thousand men in one encounter at the fortress of Ktam (Judges xv. 16), and finally by causing at his death a greater destruction to the enemies of his country, than he had accomplished during his life- time (Judges xvi. 30). : This Appearance to Manoah and his wife contributes its quota of evidence to the identity of this Angel of the Lord, this Jehovah-Angel, with the future Lord or Jehovah-Jesus of the New Testament. For this very Name and attribute ‘‘ Wonderful” asserted for himself* by the Angel of the Lord in His interview with Manoah, is ascribed by the Prophet Hsaias to the future Incarnate Redeemer, in one of the most remarkable of his prophecies, ‘“‘ Unto us a child is born, unto us a sonis given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God” (Isa. vii. 6). * It was not the Name of Him that sent him, but his own that he thus expressed. This is a striking proof that He was that Son who should be afterwards given.—Jamieson’s Vindica- HO AVOL-t., DL 12: 150 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE VIIL—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO SAMUEL. The standing Commission of Samuel.—The Divine Appearance to Samuel.—Its twofold manifestation.—Its recognition by Kili.—The Revelation of the Word of the Lord at Shiloh.— Its meaning.—The results of its presence.—The con- solidation of the twelve tribes, and the commencement of the Kingdom.—The peculiar office of Samuel.—His establishment of the Schools of the Prophets.—Their zeal and fearlessness\—The importance of the ministra- tions of Samuel. SAMUEL takes a very high place among those favoured chieftains and rulers appointed by the Most High for the direction and guidance of the children of Israel. He was not like Gideon, or Jephthah, or the son of Manoah, raised up for a special occasion of difficulty or emergency. He was like his illustrious predeces- sors the great lawgiver Moses, and the mighty general Joshua, honoured with a permanent standing com- mission, co-extensive with his life, conferred upon him in an immediate manifestation of the Divine Angel of the Covenant. The child of prayer, and dedicated from his infancy to the service of the Sanctuary, Samuel resided in the chambers within the sacred precincts of the Sanctuary allotted to the attendants on the Tabernacle. Ere the lamp which was kept burning during the night in the Holy place was put out,* the attention of the youthful acolyte * Some of the lamps, as that in the great shaft of the golden candlestick, which bent towards the holy place, never went out: others were extinguished at dawn of day.—Bp. Patrick in locum. TO SAMUEL. 151 of the holy shrine is attracted by a voice calling him by name, “‘ Samuel, Samuel.” Three times in succession did he run to Hl, insisting that he had called him. On his third appeal, Eli perceived that the Lord Jehovah had called his young atten- dant, and gave him instructions as to what his con- duct should be, if the Voice again addressed him. On the next hearing of his name, Samuel replied, ‘¢ Speak,* for thy servant heareth.” The sacred narrative is extremely short, yet its careful investigation will reveal the customary union of the human and Divine character in this august and mysterious visitor. The expression “The Lord (Jehovah) came, and stood and called,” attest the human appearance of the Divine manifestation, while the authoritative communication to Samuel, the claim to be the judge of the House of Hhi, and the avenger of the delinquencies of his sons, indicate the existence in the Speaker of the sovereignty, attributes, and power of God. The subsequent testi- mony of Eli affords additional strength to the inter- pretation, which recognizes the presence of Jehovah in this visitor to Samuel. “It is Jehovah, let him do what seemeth him good.” This Divine commission caused in later years the recognition of Samuel, * It is to be observed that Samuel omitted the mention of the title, enjoined on him by Eli. This omission may have been the result of his confusion, or agitation: or it may be attributed to his awe and reverence for the Name of God. 152 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ‘from Dan even to Beersheba,” as a Prophet of Jehovah; but he had another assurance of the Divine Presence ever guiding and supporting him; “ for the Lord Jehovah revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh, by the Word of the Lord”’* (1 Sam. iii. 21), that is, that the voice of the Lord Jehovah speaking from between the Cherubim on the Mercy-seat, which had been promised to Moses (Exod. xxv. 22; Numb. vil. 89), and which had been silent during the troublous times of the servitudes, oppressions and dreadful intestine divisions consequent on the idola- tries and perversenesses of the people was restored again for the guidance and direction of the nation. Samuel, under this twofold assurance of a Divine Commission, and of guidance from the Divine Voice speaking from the Mercy Seat, induced a real spirit of reformation among the people, which led to a solemn renewal of the National Covenant with the Lord Jehovah at Mizpeh, and to the consequent intervention of the Divine Presence in the miraculous destruction of the armies of the Philistines, ‘‘ when the Lord Jehovah thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited them and they were smitten before Israel, and were eee * Word of the Lord, i.e. by the voice between the Cherubim Jehovah spoke immediately to Samuel, and Samuel repeated to the people what Jehovah had said to him: and in this manner Jehovah was again, as in former times, manifested in Shiloh.— Bishop Horsley’s Biblical Criticisms, vol. i., p. 307-8. LOT SAMUEL, 153 subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel, and the hand of the Lord Jehovah was against the Philistine all the days of Samuel”’ (1 Sam. vii.). This cessation of the allotted forty years of the Philistian servitude by the visible display of the ““michty hand and stretched-out arm ”’ led to the most important results. The Twelve Tribes for the first time in their history became at this time consolidated into one Civil and Hcclesiastical polity, and began to assume the dignity, strength, and importance to be derived from a recognized Government and settled institutions. The great need of the Israelites at such a crisis was the presence of a statesman able to control and direct the nascent fortunes of the nation, and to educate, train, and prepare it for the due discharge of its national duties and increased responsi- bilities. Such a counsellor was raised up for them in their hour of need in the person of the divinely commissioned, wise, noble, judicious, faithful, and patriotic Samuel. The changed condition of the Israelites not only required a great statesman tem- porarily raised up to assist at the inauguration of their nation among the kingdoms of the earth; but the altered position of their commonwealth required the permanent establishment of a new order of persons, who should ina continued succession, teach, forewarn, and remonstrate with a people so prone to apostacy and idolatry. Samuel conferred this addi- tional boon on his countrymen by commencing in his own person, and by continuing by virtue of his own 154 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Divine appointment, those Schools of the prophets, which in after times ever sent forth a succession of holy and energetic men, who showed their zeal for the glory of Jehovah, in never fearing to deliver in the presence of the monarch, the nobles, or the popu- lace the Divine communications with which they were entrusted. ‘Thus the Prophet Samuel in his protracted ministrations as a great and wise states- man presiding over the birth-throes of the nation, played as important a part as his illustrious pre- cursors Moses and Joshua, in the ultimate develop- ment and establishment in Canaan of the people of the Hebrews. In his days, and as the results of his wise administration, the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob made a sensible progress and advance towards their perfected consummation. VII.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO DAVID. The accession of David.—The national approval.—The capture , of the last Canaanitish fortress.—The foundation of Jeru- salem.—The removal of the ark to Mount Zion.—Its great procession.—The fame and prosperity of David—The Davidic Covenant.—Its limits.—Its national acceptance. —David’s muster-roll—tIts contrariety to the Jewish law.—Its impolitic statesmanship.—Its sad penalty.— The message of Gad.—The humiliation and repentance of David.—The remission of his punishment.—The mani- festation to David of the Angel-Jehovah.—His control of TO DAVID. 155 the destroying Angel.—His twofold aspect.—He receives the adoration of David, of Ornan, and his sons.—The descent of fire on the sacrifices.—David’s interview with Ornan.—Their mutual generosity.—The penitential pro- cession of David, and of his Court.—The cessation of the pestilence.—The site of the future Temple. Tue children of Israel are at last established through the length and breadth of the land of Canaan. David, the son of Jesse, a shepherd youth, taken from the sheep-folds, becomes by a series of strange circumstances, the son-in-law of Saul, the first sovereign of the Jews, and finally the successor to his throne. After a protracted warfare for seven years, and many oscillations of fortune, he is accepted as Ruler by the will of the whole united nation, and becomes the Founder of a powerful hereditary kingdom. He did not achieve entirely by his own martial skill and prowess the subjugation of his enemies. The intervention of more than human aid assisted him, as in the defeat of the Philistines at Rephaim, by the “‘sound of going from the mulberry- trees,” as the noise of a retreating army (2 Sam.v. 24). The capture, by the valour and agility of Joab, the general of his forces, of the hitherto impregnable stronghold of Jebus, the last Canaanitish fortress in the country, provided him most opportunely a suitable Capitol for his new dynasty, and here in the future Jerusalem (a city to become the joy of the whole earth), he took up his royal Residence, and here maintained his court with all the splendour of a 156 THe DIVINE APPEARANCE powerful Eastern Monarch. Shortly after this peace- ful erection of his palace on Mount Zion, David calls a solemn assembly of the Leaders of all the Tribes at Hebron, the site of his late consecration as King, and suggests to them the removal of the Ark of the Lord from Kirjathjearim to Mount Zion, in the immediate vicinity of his own Court and Residence. The proposal meets with an universal acceptance, and after one ineffectual attempt at its removal, the holy shrine, surmounted by the Cheru- bim, and filled with the two Tables of Stone,* the sacred memorials of the Divine Covenant at Sinai, is brought in triumphant exultation to the lately captured fortress on Mount Zion. King David attended in person and took a prominent part in the ceremonial procession. In the presence of multitudes of his subjects, of the great officers of his Court, and the lengthened ranks of the newly organized priesthood, he joined in the religious dances of these ministering servants before the Ark. “Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the Covenant of the Lord with shouting, and with the sound of the cornet, and with trumpets, and with cymbals, making a noise with psalteries, and harps” (1 Chron. xvi. 28). That memorable day marks a crisis in Jewish history. * The pot of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the censer made in remembrance of Korah’s rebellion had been lost in the capture of the ark by the Philistines (1 Kings viii. 9).— Stanley’s Lectures on Jewish History, vol. ii., p. 215. © TO DAVID. 157 From that time forth, from the day of the location of the ark at Mount Zion, the Divine blessing rested on David, and on his subjects, ‘‘ so that the fame of David went out into all lands; and the Lord (Jehovah) brought the fear of him upon all nations.” King David received, moreover, a pre-eminent token of the Divine favour. The prophet Nathan was commissioned by the “ Word of the Lord,” #.e. by the Angel-Jehovah, to assure him that the Lord Jehovah would make a Covenant with him and with his seed for the inheritance of an everlasting king- dom. ‘‘The Lord Jehovah telleth thee, that He will make thee an house, and when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish the throne of his king- dom for ever” (2 Sam. vii. 8-16). The Abrahamic Covenant was confined by the prophecy of the dying Jacob, to the members of the tribe of Judah. The New Davidic Covenant limited its fulfilment to the seed and family of David.* This new Covenant was received by the twelve tribes, lately consolidated into a nation, with the utmost enthusiasm, as being a * The language of Nathan, however, was so exalted and majestic, that it was plain that this new Covenant with David looked forward to an eventual fulfilment in one greater than David, and in the establishment of a kingdom far more glorious and enduring than the shortlived sovereignties of David and Solomon. 158 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE pledge of the future glory of the new kingdom; and henceforth the Covenant made with David found as large a place* amidst the strains of the psalmists and the themes of the prophets, as the earlier oath sworn unto the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Thus highly favoured by the Most High, with the establishment of a New Covenant, and blessed with victories over all his enemies, King David determines to make a muster-roll of his subjects and to ascer- tain the extent of his military resources. The act incurs the Divine displeasure. Whether the dis- pensing with the half-shekel required by the Mosaic Law on these occasions (Exod. xxx. 12), or whether the implied discredit of the Divine promise to Abraham, “that his seed should be as the sand on the sea shore, innumerable,” be the exact source of the Divine displeasure,f it is plain that David yielded to the temptation which, as a successful conqueror, would most easily beset him. This census seemed to intimate that he trusted more in the numbers of his soldiers for the defence of his kingdom, than in the favour and protection of the Lord Jehovah. He lost that humility of soul, that * See Appendix C. on the Davidic Covenant. + ‘The act offends not, but the misaffection. The same thing had been commendably done out of a princely providence, which now through the curiosity, pride, misconfidence of the doer proves heinously vicious.’—Bp. Halls Contemplations, Book xyvyi., 6. TO DAVID. 159 ornament of a: meek and quiet spirit, which is of great price in the sight of God. He forgot his obligations to, and his dependence on, that Higher Sovereign, who had crowned his arms with victory. It was also a most impolitic act, a great mistake in statesmanship, as it gave a public, legal, documentary evidence, recorded in the archives of the realm, of the reasonableness of those oft-arising jealousies, heartburnings and complaints of the men of Israel, that the inhabitants of Judah, the smallest in numbers, should be entrusted with the exclusive privileges of the guardianship of the king, the custody of the ark, and the chiefest administration of the Government. As the penalty of this transgression, the prophet Gad was sent to David, to offer him a choice be- tween three forms of chastisement ; flight before his enemies; the protracted miseries of a famine; or the briefer agony of a destructive pestilence. The afflicted Sovereign, in acknowledgment of the hand that dealt with him, replied to the seer, “I am in a great strait: Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord (Jehovah); for his mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man’ (2 Sam. xxiv. 12). In the meanwhile David lifts his voice in earnest supplication. ‘‘Lo! I have sinned, and I have done wickedly, but these sheep, what have they done? let thy hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house” (2 Sam. xxiv. 17). And then, on this exceeding humiliation of David, 160 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE the arm of the destroying Angel was stayed by an Appearance to David of the “ Angel of the Lord.” The keynote to the right understanding of this Divine Appearance is to be found in the fifteenth verse of the twenty-first chapter of the First Book of Chronicles. “And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the Lord (Jehovah) beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the Angel of the Lord stood by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.” The sacred narrative implies the presence of two different Angels in this infliction, and in this cessation, of the pestilence. The first is a created Angel, who executes with exact and stringent faithfulness, as an obedient Messenger, the work of destruction to which he is commissioned. The second is the uncreated Angel of Jehovah, co-equal and co-eternal with Jehovah. He is invested, as his inherent preroga- tive, with the power of retaining or of remitting the threatened chastisement. He, of his omnipotent will, can command the Destroyer to stretch out, or to withhold, His hand. This Angel of the Lord is described in this crucial verse (1 Chron. xxi. 15) both as ‘*God” and as ‘‘Jehovah.” He is also described in the next verse (1 Chron. xxi. 16) as seen by David and the elders of Israel, standing, after the likeness of a warrior, between earth and heaven, over the threshing-floor of Ornan, with a sword drawn in His hand, in the very same fashion in which He was seen POmI IA Vall. I61 by Balaam, and by Joshua, as the Captain, or Prince of the host of the Lord, one of which Host now acted in obedience to His commands. At the sight of this Divine Angel, David and his attendant courtiers at once fall on their faces in an attitude of lowliest adoration, and manifest that deep reverential awe which always accompanied a manifestation of the Divine presence of the Angel of the Lord. And so also, Ornan saw the Angel of the Lord, and with his four sons hid himself (1 Chron. xxi. 20). There is another final testimony to this Divine Appearance to David being a true manifestation of the Angel of the Lord in the visible descent of the fire from heaven, the very symbol of the Divine Shekinah upon the sacrifices offered by David on the altar erected, in obedience to the directions of God, on the threshing- floor of Ornan. This chieftain Ornan or Araunah, who forms go conspicuous a figure in this history, is supposed to have been the warrior ruler of Jebus, from whom David had wrested his strong fortress, the last hold of the ancient race of Canaan, on Mount Zion. If this be so, the interest of the interview between David and Ornan is materially enhanced. The fallen* king of the ancient fortress, seeing (from that portion of his former domain yet reserved to him) his conqueror approach in penitential garb, with weeping Jobe Sotcc npn len ll leat ede at ec a Se ay * Stanley’s “Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church,”’ vol. ii., p. 134. i 162 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE eyes, and garment rent, and with ashes on his head, and accompanied by a band of counsellors bearing the same tokens of sorrow, hastens to meet him with customary reverence and obeisance. The sense of a common calamity opens the hearts alike of the Canaanitish, and of the Jewish, Prince. The liberality of the one is only surpassed by the zeal, piety, and generosity of the other. The ownership of the threshing-floor being speedily exchanged, and the altar being constructed, the time-honoured war- rior and aged King, surrounded by the mourning group of priests, senators, generals, and people, falls on his face in lowliest supplication, and obtains, by the appointed burnt-offering, the cessation of the pestilence, and an assurance of the restoration of the favour of the Divine Guardian of his nation, by the descent of fire from heaven on his offering. Nor is this all; for David is on this occasion still further comforted with a special proof of the Divine favour, in being assured that this altar which he had reared on the threshing-floor of Ornan was appointed to be the site of that ‘‘ magnifical house’”’ he so ardently desired to build to the glory of Jehovah. Then David said, “‘ This is the House of the Lord God, and this is the altar of burnt-offering for Israel” (1 Chron, xxii. 1). an TO SOLOMON. 163 IX.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO SOLOMON. The fulfilment of the Divine promises to Abraham.—The vast extent of Solomon’s kingdom.—The correspondence of its boundaries with those announced to Abraham.—The armies and fleets of Solomon.—His adornment of his Capitol and Palace.—- His erection of the Temple.—Its builders.—Its Dedication.—Its consecration by the presence of the “Glory of the Lord.”—The splendour of the scene.—Its ‘vital significance.—The culminating point of Hebrew - History.—The reign of Solomon marked by three Divine manifestations.—The first at Gibeon.—The gift of wisdom. —The second manifestation at Jerusalem.—A message of blessing, and of warning.—The testimony to the Angel of the Lord, as Jehovah.—The sad defection of Solomon.— The last Divine manifestation, a message of severe warning.—Remarkable instance of providential arrange- ment.—The larger fulfilment of the promises to Abraham and David. Tux Divine promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, according to their temporal fulfilment, met with a full and perfect accomplishment in the reign of Solomon. The first hereditary king of Judah, he blended and blent the twelve tribes of Israel, with all their variety of interests, and unbrotherly jealousies into one compact, homogeneous, and united nation. His empire extended from the Euphrates to the Nile, and from the great sea, the Mediterranean to the gulf of Akaba, and embraced the furthest bounds of the territories promised to the descendants of the Hah & 164 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE first founder of their race. Never in former or in later times did a king of Judah or Israel make treaties on equal terms with the great monarchies of Egypt and Assyria, and exact an annual ransom from Syria, and other tributary peoples. The armies of Solomon were formidable by the number, no less than by the courage of his soldiers, and were increased by Egyptian mercenaries* provided with fourteen hun- dred chariots, and twelve thousand horses. His fleets enlivened with their sails every coast of the Mediter- ranean, and brought from Tyre, Ophir, Tarshish, and the islands of the sea, gold, silver, ivory, iron, cedar- trees, apes, and peacocks (2 Chron. ix. 21). So that silver became as stones, and cedar-trees as sycamores, in Jerusalem. He adorned and beautified his Capitol with palatial buildings, handsome terraces, and military fortalices. The reputation of his exalted wisdom attracted Kings and Queens as visitors to his Court, the fame of which with its costly lion-throne, golden cups, rich adornments, and right-royal retinue, was in all nations round about (1 Kings iy. 31). And lastly, Solomon achieved the greatest triumph of his reign by the erection of that exceeding magnificalt Temple, which with its imposing ritual, * To prevent the possibility of foreign conquests the use of Cavalry in their armies was forbidden to the Hebrews. This enactment of the law was disregarded by Solomon. t+ Here was nothing but white marble without, nothing but cedar and gold within. Upon the hill of Zion stands that TO SOLOMON. 165 and its ever recurrent services by courses of attendants, became the wonder and admiration of the world. Thus did this great Sovereign elerate the descendants of the Patriarchs, the former bondsmen of Pharaoh, the victims in turn of the oppressing hordes of Moab, Ammon, Midian, and Hazor into a mighty and powerful people, taking its place of pride and influence among the foremost nations of the earth. Never was a more imposing or splendid ceremonial witnessed by human eyes than that which celebrated the Dedication of the Temple on Mount Zion. In the central court-yard of the new sanctuary, on a raised dais or stage, Solomon sat, arrayed in the dazzling robes of an eastern sovereign, and surrounded by an exulting throng of generals, viziers, counsellors, guards, and officers. A vast and excited multitude is gathered on all sides from every class of the people: merchants from Ophir, Asia Minor, and Arabia; sailors from Greece; artificers from Tyre ; skilled workmen in iron, brass, gold, precious stones, and cedar wood; water-carriers, grass-cutters, stranger proselytes,* learned rabbis, scribes, and glittering and snowy pile, which both inviteth and dazzleth the eyes of passengers afar off: so much more precious within, as cedar is better than stone, gold than cedar. No base thing goes to the making up of God’s House.—Bishop Hall’s Con- ‘templations, Book xvii., c. 5. * Solomon employed these stranger proselytes in his con- struction of the Temple. ‘Not Jews only but Gentiles must 166 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE pundits. Before the vail, which separated the Holy, from the most Holy place, stood 120 priests sounding with trumpets, assisted by a far larger number of singers (Levites), and by the players on the cymbals, harps, and psalteries, all vested in white festive raiment. How superbly grand must have been the effect, when this mighty choir united to make one sound to be heard in praises, and thanksgivings, and lifted up their voices in the exhilarating strains of Psalm evii. “O give thanks unto Jehovah, for He is good, and His mercy endureth for ever” (2 Chron. v. 12, 13). But there is a hush in that vast assembly. The monarch, the honoured builder of the Temple, rises from his royal dais, and having solemnly blessed his ‘people, stands in an attitude of prayer, and with hands uplifted towards heaven entreats the favour of Jehovah to all the suppliants in this House dedicated to His service. At the termination of this prayer the king, nobles, priests, and Levites,with all the assembled worshippers, fell with their faces to the ground upon the pavement in thankful adoration of the Lord Jehovah, and then, that symbol of the presence of the Divine Guardian of the chosen people, the fiery cloudy pillar which had irradiated with its bright flame the Tabernacle ee ees have their hand in building the temple of God: only Jews meddled with the Tabernacle, but {the temple is not built without the aid of Gentiles: they together make up the Church of God.” —-Bp. Hall’s Contemplations, Book xvii., c, 11. TO SOLOMON. 167 at its first erection in the Wilderness, which had consecrated the site of the Temple by its descent on the sacrifice of David on Mount Moriah, now again fills with its covering cloud the newly-built House of Jehovah, while the fire from the cloud consumes the burnt-offerings, and peace-offerings upon the altar in token of the Divine acceptance of the sacrifices, and the Priests could not enter the house of the Lord; because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house (2 Chron. vii. 3). This solemn dedication of a permanent building on Mount Moriah by the Jewish nation, devoted to the honour and worship of the Lord Jehovah, is a true exaltation of His great Name in the sight of the Nations, and a public manifestation of the acknowledgment by the Hebrewsof the won ders wrought for them by the mighty hand and stretched- out arm of their Divine Protector. It is also to be regarded as the very crowning culmination of the Divine mercies to His chosen people, the seal of the full fulfilment of the temporal promises to their ereat forefather, the testimony to all nations of the power and of the faithfulness of the Lord Jehovah, and the unanswerable proof of the reality of the eventual possession of Canaan by the people, to whom that fair land had for centuries beforehand been promised as an inheritance. The reign of Solomon was marked by his per- sonal reception of Divine communications on three different occasions: on his accession to the throne, on the double event of his completion of the Temple 168 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE of the Lord, and of his own palace, and on his sad lapse, in his public sanction of idolatrous worship. The newly anointed Sovereign, on his entrance on his reign, went up with royal pomp to offer sacrifices to the Lord Jehovah before the ancient tabernacle of the Wilderness, which was located at Gibeon. On his arrival there, “ the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall give thee” (1 Kings iii. 5). Solomon ina spirit of humility, and of love for his people, besought a gift of wisdom to enable him to discharge aright his exalted and responsible duties. His petition is granted, and in the Divine approval of his unselfish request, an additional promise of riches and honour is given him. Short as are the narratives of these Divine manifestations to Solomon, there are in- dications which may suffice to bring them within — the reach of the great canon of St.John. “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten son, he hath declared him ” (John i. 18). The expression the ‘Lord appeared” is the form of words, denoting the presence of the “ Angel of the Lord,” while the outpouring on the favoured monarch of a wisdom that is from above (James iii. 17), and which only Omnipotence can bestow, proves the inherent claim of this manifested Angel to be the self-existent Jehovah. About twenty years later a more solemn and more momentous interview was accorded at Jerusalem to Solomon by this mysterious Visitor, on his completion of the House of the Lord, TO SOLOMON. 169 and of his own Palace—‘ for then the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as He had appeared to him at Gibeon” (1 Kings ix. 1). On this occasion Solomon is assured of the Divine favour to the newly erected sanctuary, and of the continuance of blessing to himself and his successors, on their observance of the statutes, and commandments of Jehovah, and is warned at the same time with an ominous import, that on the failure of their obedience, their Temple would be destroyed, and their land punished with the severest visitations. In this, as in the vision at Gibeon, the very words of the message attest the Divine power and authority inherent in the Speaker, while his visible Appearance to Solomon indicates the personal manifestation of the Angel of Jehovah. Solomon, so highly favoured as the builder of the Temple, and as the first and last hereditary Ruler of an united Israel, fell away in his later years from his exclusive allegiance to the Lord !Jehovah, and permitted the erection of three Heathen idolatrous altars in the immediate vicinity of Mount Zion. On this sad defection from his early zeal he is for the third time appealed to by an Appearance to him of the manifested Jehovah, who speaks to him in displeasure, and forewarns him of the punishment of his great offence, in the successes of his enemies, and in the disruption of his empire (1 Kings xi. 9-13). The History of Solomon affords an admirable example of the providential overruling of events. 170 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE. While the temporary glory of Solomon fulfilled to the uttermost the promise of temporal greatness to Abraham and his seed, yet its shortlived endurance would teach that there was another larger, and richer blessing contained in the oath sworn unto the Patriarch. If the Hebrews had for any length of time retained a kingdom, so extended, united, rich, powerful, and prosperous as that ruled over by Solomon, they would have been tempted to the ambitions of foreign conquests, and would have sought to secure the blessings promised to their great ancestor, and confirmed by an _ everlasting Covenant to their illustrious King (2 Sam. vii. c.), by the imposition of an universal compulsory supremacy over all nations. The oath sworn unto Abraham and the Covenant made with David, were to meet with a later, and more merciful accomplish- ment. The children of Israel were to become the civilizers not the conquerors of mankind. Of the seed of Abraham and of the family of David, a Ruler was to arise, wiser than Solomon, “‘ the King of peace and righteousness,” the founder of an universal and everlasting dominion, in whom all nations were to be blessed. APPENDIX A. 171 APPENDIX A: ON THE PATRIARCHAL PRIESTHOOD. Tue Divine appointment of a Patriarchal Priesthood is established by many circumstances related in the early records of mankind. The observance of the Sabbath Day as a day of more especial public ser- vice: the recognition of sacrifice by the descendants of Shem as a distinct act of religious worship; the very necessity imposed by a revealed religion of persons set apart as instructors of its peculiar truths ; the subsequent Redemption (by the payment of money under the Levitical Economy) of the First- Born, as of persons once holy unto the Lord; the general tradition held by the Jews of the Divine appointment of the Patriarchal Priesthood; the determined resistance of Korah under this conviction of the Divine institution of the order to which he | belonged, have induced the belief, that the eldest sons of the Patriarchal families were set apart from the beginning by the immediate authority of Jehovah, as the recognized public Ministry of the Patriarchal covenant. It has been suggested with a certain appearance of probability that the goodly raiment in which Jacob was arrayed when he sought and obtained the blessing of Isaac, was the priestly robe reserved for the ministrations of the First Born. Bishop Overall’s Convocation. Book, (so called ty 2 AMEE NOT GD: because it was submitted to, and received the assent of the Upper House of Convocation, as the Text Book of Theology in the English Church, in the reign of James I.) contains this Canon. ‘If there- fore any man shall affirm that the Son of God having from the beginning a Church on earth, did leave them to the flood without priests, and priestly authority to govern and instruct them in those ways of their salvation, and in the right manner of the worship and service of God; or that they might teach them any other doctrine in their. behalf, than that which they had received from God himself, they do greatly err.” Placet eis. APPENDIX B. ON DR. MILL’S REMARKS ON THE ANGEL SEEN BY JOSHUA. Dr. Mitt, the late Christian advocate in the University of Cambridge, supposes this Captain of the Lord’s hosts to be a created Angel. He gives two grounds for this opinion. The first he deduces from the passage, Hxod. xxxiii. 1, where the “ Angel of the Lord refuses to go with Moses, and proposes to send an inferior created Angel in his place.’ The reply to this is, that the later history shows that APPENDIX B. 173 the misconduct of the people, which gave rise to this refusal, was pardoned and condoned, in the renewed promise of the Divine Presence by the Angel of the Lord. ‘My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest” (Exod. xxxii. 14). Bishop Wordsworth (Lincoln) in his commentary says of this verse: ‘‘This was an act of amnesty, and reconciliation, and renewal of the Covenant.” Canon Medd confirms this view. ‘‘ Thus,” he says, “the Covenant-relation was renewed, and with it the Guardianship of the Angel, on whom was the Incommunicable Name” (‘Bampton Lectures,” p- 202). Moses also in his farewell addresses declares that in all their circumstances, ‘‘ The Lord Jehovah (7.e. the Angel of the Lord) alone did lead them, and there was no strange God with them” (Deut. xxxii. 12). So also the Prophet Esaias (lxiii. 7). ‘Tn all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the Angel of his Presence [Face] saved them. In his love and in his pity He redeemed them, and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.” The second reason given by Dr. Mill is, that this Angel only asserts for himself a ministerial office, instead of the supreme claim recorded (Exod. iii. 6): and that “worship”? might imply, less than Divine adoration. The reply is, that the consideration of the whole context, the exact similarity and corre- spondence in the words directing Moses and Joshua to mark the holiness of the place consecrated by the Divine presence; the designation of this Angel as 174 APPENDIX C. Jehovah by Joshua himself (vi. 1); the remonstrances recorded of the very same Angel at Bochim a few years later as the Angel-Jehovah, forbid the accept- ance of this lower interpretation of Dr. Mill. How, except in the very manifestation of the Angel- Jehovah on this occasion to Joshua, could there be a fulfilment of the Divine promise (Joshua i. 3): “Ag I was with Moses, so will I be with thee.” The late Christian advocate, however, concludes his remarks with a very candid confession. After saying that Archbishop Usher, Bishop Patrick and others of the Anglican Church take an opposite view to himself, he adds: “and were this latter point (viz. the Divine condonation of the transgression of his people) made clear, it would ill become any © member of that Church to adopt any other inter- pretation of this passage.”—Cf. Mill’s observations on application of Pantheistic principle, p. 47. APPENDIX C. ON THE DAVIDIC COVENANT. Tue Davidic Covenant was ever kept in view in the later history of the favoured people. Its eventual fulfilment was evidently referred to the coming of a King, of David’s royal lineage, yet possessing a king- dom far transcending any earthly dominion. The APPENDIX C. 175 Psalms are full of these intimations of the highest glories of the true Davidic kingdom. It will suffice to quote Ps. ii. 6, 7,8, ‘““Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession ;”” and again (Ps. Ixxxix. 20) “I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him: also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.” The prophet Esaias in his famous prophecy (vii. 6, 7) pronounced long after David’s decease, tells of the birth of a wondrous Son, bearing the Divine Name, and declares “ 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 judgement and justice from henceforth even for ever;” and again Hsaias writes (lv. 3), “‘ I will make an ever- lasting Covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people.” Ezekiel, in the lowest agony of Judah’s humiliation, is inspired to comfort the captives with the assurance (xxxiv.c.) ‘And I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David, and I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a Prince among them: I the Lord have spoken it.”’ 176 APPENDIX C. The Prophet, Micah, celebrates Bethlehem as the City of David, out of which was to come forth “a Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.’ The Angel Gabriel, in relating her favoured destiny to the Virgin Mother was deputed to announce that her child “shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest : and the Lord God shall give wnto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke i. 32, 33). An Angel again sends the Shepherds to the City of David, as connecting with the lineage of David the birth of Him, who was proclaimed ‘‘as the Saviour, Christ the Lord (the Jehovah)” (Luke 11. 11). The poor sufferers who appealed to our Blessed Lord for healing during His ministry evoked His compassion as the Son of David (Matt. xx. 30, 31; Luke xviii. 38 to end), and on His entry into Jerusalem in anticipation of His great sacrifice, He fulfilled the prophecy of Zecharias by approaching Jerusalem, in kingly guise, amidst the cries of the children, and the vociferations of the multitudes, ‘‘ Hosanna to the Son of David, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” These testimonies will suffice to show that the Davidic Covenant met its fulfilment in the person of Him, who was at once the Son of David, and the Son of the Highest ; the partaker of a human nature, and yet the possessor of an everlasting kingdom. BOOK III. FROM THE DISRUPTION OF THE KINGDOM TO THE CLOSE OF THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. —_—_—_—. Summary of Contents. Tur Divine APPEARANCE To ELIJAH. IT. Tue Divine Appearance to Esatras. III. Tue Drvine APPEARANCE TO JEREMIAH. IV. Tue Divine APPEARANCE To Ezexret. V. Tue Divine APPEARANCE TO DANIEL. VI. Tue Divine ApPPRARANCE TO ZECHARIAH. APPENDIX A.—ON THE SIN or JEROBOAM. AppenpDIxX B.—On tHe Inriupnce ofr tHE Jews ox THE Gentine Nations. 12 wy IBXOLONE INL I.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ELIJAH. A remarkable change in the mode of the Divine manifesta- tions.—No longer National, but confined to individual persons.—The sin of Jeroboam leads to Idolatry.—The national suffering.—The Divine protection continued to Israel.—Their opportunity of repentance.—The Commis- sion to Elijah.—The first interview with Ahab.—The important crisis.—The wickedness of Ahab.—The Divine Visitation.—Its appropriateness.—The second interview with Ahab.—The Controversy on Mount Carmel.—Itg results, and significance.—The hopes and disappointment of Elijah.—His relinquishment of his office.—The Divine Appearance at Horeb.—Its Correspondency with that to Moses.—The resumption of his office by Elijah.— The final interview with Ahab.—The perseverance of BKlijah. Arter the Disruption of the Kingdom, and the Division of the tribes into two separate nations, an important change ensued in the mode of the Divine manifestations. The Angel-Jehovah was no longer made visible to the whole nation, as at the remon- strance at Bochim, the infliction of the pestilence under David, and the Dedication of the Temple by Solomon. The Divine Appearances henceforth were of a less public character. The manifestation of the Angel-Jehovah was confined to the individual recipients. of a Divine Commission. The secession of the Ten Tribes, and the offensive introduction by their Ruler, Jeroboam, of an un- 127% 1f0 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE. authorized* form of worship, led to a rapid growth cf irreligion, to the practice of idolatry, and to the abominations of Baal-worship. These national sins were visited with national sufferings; in the miseries of disputed successions, continued wars, and frequent dynastic revolutions; yet the Lord Jehovah extends to this revolted portion of His people, proofs of His continued care. His Almighty arm is still raised for their defence, in the destruction cf the Moabites (2 Kings iii.); in the dispersion of the Syrians (2 Kings vii.); and in the threefold victory over Edom (2 Kings xiii.). It is distinctly stated of the oppression of Hazael, ‘And the Lord (Jehovah) was gracious unto them, and had com- passion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, or cast them out of his presence, as yet” (2 Kings xii. 23). In addition to these wondrous deliverances, as the proofs of His continued guardianship, the merciful and gracious God gives to His apostate people a place and oppor- tunity for repentance. He raises up a succession of faithful and energetic men, Ahijah, Shemiah, Jehu, Hanani, Elijah, Elisha, Jonas (2 Kings xiv. 27) and Hoshea; who should appeal in His holy Name to the ears, hearts, and consciences of their countrymen. Of this goodly fellowship of the Israelitish prophets Elijah was the most remarkable, as being a con- * On the Sin of Jeroboam.—Cf. Appendix A. TO ELIFAH. 181 spicuous actor in the saddest crisis of the nations history. Ahab, the eighth Ruler in succession from Jero- boam, having married a daughter of Eth-baal King of the Zidonians, determines under the influence of his wife, to introduce Baalim (1 Kings xvi. 31) as the established religion of his kingdom. He meets with no opposition to his will. The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. The nobles and elders of his city consent to the death of Naboth, for his adherence to the Divine Law, which forbade the alienation of the inheritance of his Fathers. The Schools* of the Prophets, the authorized teachers dispersed throughout the country share the general corruption. The people make no remonstrance. And thus within sixty yearsof their separation from Judah, the idol Baal is substituted for the Lord Jehovah, as the Protector of the Kingdom. In this position of affairs, Elijah receives a Divine command to present himself at the Palace at Samaria, and to announce * These Schools of the Prophets supplied those young men, who disbelieved the “rapture” of Elijah, and in ridicule of his translation mocked Elisha, “Go up (Ascend) thou bald head ” (2 Kings ii. 23), and were punished for their impiety. The authorized version unfortunately translates the word “ Naarim”’ little children ; but it signifies grown men. Isaac, when he was twenty-eight years old (Gen. xxii. 5), Joseph, when he was thirty years old (Gen. xli. 12), and Rehoboam, when he was forty years old, are designated by this title (2 Chron. xiii. tae —Cf. Bishop Patrick (2 Kings ii. ¢.). 182 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE to Ahab, and his subjects the certain punishment of their idolatry, in the appointed visitation of a famine, to be continued through three years. No chastise- ment could more forcibly prove to the offending Sovereign, that the government of the earth, and the sources of its fertility, the rain and dew, the seed-time and harvest, the cloud and sunshine, are in the hands of the Lord Jehovah, and not within the control of the idol-Deity worshipped in the land of Jezebel. At the termination of the three years of the appointed sufferings, Elijah is required to seek a second interview with Ahab, and to propose a public controversy between himself, and the priests of Baal, and to suggest the descent of fire from heaven, as a test of the superiority of Baal, or of the Lord Jehovah. The challenge is accepted.* The God that answereth by fire, let him be God: and all the people answered and said, “ It is well spoken.” The votaries of Baal, and the attendants on Elijah assemble, on the day appointed for the festival, on the summit of Mount Carmel. The sacrifices are prepared. The followers of Baal dance around the image of their idol, leap upon the altar, and endeavour, according to the customs witnessed in the present day in Heathen lands, by frantic cries, hideous postures, and violent self-lacerations to propitiate the favour of their Deity. * Baal was worshipped as the Sun-God, the originator of heat and light. TO ELIZAH. 183 Elijah, on the other hand seeks an exact conformity to the ritual of the Temple Service. He repairs the former altar of Jehovah, and constructs it with twelve stones according to the number of the tribes of Israel. In order to prove to the assembled multi- tude the utter impossibility of fraud or collusion, and to attest to the utmost the reality of the Divine intervention, he pours water* three times upon his sacrifice, and fills the trench around the base of the altar. Calm in the majesty of truth, supported by a firm reliance on the power of Jehovah, he quietly waits till the time of the evening sacrifice, and then before that gathered throng of the priests of Baal, of the elders of Israel, of the halting multitude, hushed into silence by the intensity of their anxiety as to the issue of the contest, with a loud and solemn invoca- tion he entreats of the Lord Jehovah the acceptance of his prayer, and the outpouring of the hoped-for sign from heaven. The great prophet does not ask in vain. The fire of the Lord, the flame of the Shekinah, the well-recognized symbol of the ancient religion, fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and * It has been asked how could there be this supply and waste of water, when there was no rain. Dr. Tristram mentions the existence of a well on the very site of this mountain, the water of which is of some depth and perennial. In that three years’ drought, when all the wells were dry, and the Kishon had first sunk to a string of pools, and then finally was lost altogether, this deep and shaded spring, fed from the roots of Carmel remained.—See Tristram’s Land of Israel, 2nd edition, p. 119. 184 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE the word, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench, and when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, “ The Jehovah, he isthe God.’ Such was the signifi- cance of this contest. It was a solemn attestation in the sight of the congregated nation of the superiority of Jehovah, an irresistible vindication of the power and authority of his servant Hlijah. It may be inferred from the sacred narrative that Khijah had looked for beneficent results to himself from the successful termination of this great con- troversy. No longer a troubler of Israel, he had become a benefactor to the nation by his voluntary intercession for an abundance of rain. He had, by a token* of respect for his person, conciliated the favour of the king. He might now legitimately * This act of Elijah (in running before Ahab) may at first sight seem an extraordinary one for a person of his age, character, and office; but when itis examined it will be found to be full of important instruction. Elijah, as God’s minister, has overwhelmed Ahab with shame and confusion in the presence of his subjects. The natural tendency of this would be to lower the king in their eyes, and to lessen their respect for his authority. But it was far from the intention of Elijah to weaken his government or to encourage rebellion. The prophet was divinely directed to give a testimony of respect and honour to the king, as public and striking as had been hig opposition and rebuke to his idolatry. The mode of doing honour to Ahab by running before his chariot was in accordance with the customs of the East.—Ct. Bp. Wordsworth’s Com- mentary in locum. TO ELIZAH. 185 have hoped for a termination of his trials, suffering, and proscription. Elijah however discerned not rightly the signs of the times. Jezebel the Queen, unchanged by either mercies or miracles, still induces her Lord to discountenance the ancient religion, and threatens the prophet with death, and with her unrelenting hatred. On this renewal of persecution the courage of Elijah fails him, and he who had boldly refuted the whole confederacy of an Heathen Priesthood, becomes faint and dispirited at the threats of a woman, and retires broken-hearted into the desert, and entreats the Lord Jehovah to take away his life. The Divine mercies however yet comfort and relieve his soul. In this dark hour of self-abasement, and despondency, he is visited by an Angel, strengthened with food from heaven, and in virtue of that bread, is sent to Mount Horeb. Here in the sacred precincts of this holy moun- tain, Hlijah the great Reformer of revolted Israel is admitted to witness a manifestation * of that Angel SS a = eS eee * The Lord causes His glory to pass before him, first in natural phenomena, which expresses His power on the earth more strongly than words . . . but the Lord is not in the storm, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, to show that His sway in the theocracy is not implacable annihilating rigour, and all consuming jealousy, but in the sound of a gentle blowing, or soft murmur, the sign of the nearness of God, which is the love which delays the punishment as long as mercy is possible.—Keil on Book of Kings, vol. i, p. 296. Clark’s Foreign Theological Library. 186 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Jehovah, who had appeared unto Moses, the great Lawgiver, and gave him the judgments, command- ments and statutes for the observance of his people. The same quaking of the Mount and rending of the rocks which accompanied the delivery of the Tables of the Decalogue are now heard. The light which illuminated the Tabernacle in the wilderness now shines around Elijah. The same great privilege of talking face to face with God, granted to Moses, is now permitted to the Prophet. The same Divine voice which remonstrated with Moses now appeals in expostulation with the fugitive herald of the Divine purposes, ‘‘ What doest Thou here, Elijah ?” On hearing the sound of that voice, Elijah wrapped his face in his coarse goat-skin prophetical mantle, afraid, (as Moses was) to look upon the Divine Appearance; and poured forth in vehement suppli- cation the agony of his soul. ‘‘I have been very jealous for the Lord Jehovah,* God of Hosts, because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, and I even I only am left, and they seek * This Name, ‘‘ Lord God of Hosts,” Jehovah Eloi Sabaoth, is of essential meaning in the mouth of Elijah. His Mission was not only to bring the people of Israel to a recognition of Jehovah, but to proclaim against the idolators in Israel, that the Lord Jehovah was also Elohim of the natural world, who had control of all things in the heavens, or in the earth.— Bp. Wordsworth in locum. LOPELIFAL. 187 my life to take it away.” And then the Divine voice calls him to the renewed discharge of his holy mission, and rebukes the unreasonableness of his despair. ‘‘ Yet have I left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” Elijah arises from this visitation of the ‘‘ Angel of the Lord,” as a giant refreshed with wine. He sets himself anew to the task assigned him. He persists. in his opposition to the counsels of Jezebel, and with unflinching courage reproves Ahab in the very act of his taking possession of the confiscated vineyard of the victimized Naboth. With a similar boldness he expostulates with King Jehoram, the wicked son of Ahab, and warns him of the fatal termination of his illness.* Thus persevering against all difficulties, dangers, and persecutions, Elijah proves himself henceforth, until the hour of his wondrous Transla- tion, the uncompromising witness of the truth, the unflinching servant of God, the most unwearied exhorter of the people, to strengthen the things that remain, and to return to the faith of their fathers, and to the worship of the Lord Jehovah. * Cf. 2 Kingsi. Elijah was favoured on this occasion with a second Appearance to him of the Angel-Jehovah. Thesacred record is silent as to the mode of its Manifestation. 188 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE I].—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ESAIAS. The Decline of the Kingdom of Judah.—Its general corruption. —The appointment of Prophets.—Their Commission from the Angel-Jehovah.—Their threefold office.—The family and times of Esaias.—His account of his prophetical appoint- ment.—An Appearance of the Angel-Jehovah.—Its corre- spondence with the earlier Theophanies.—The fear and confession of the prophet.—The site of the Vision.—The testimony of St. John to the Presence of the Jehovah- Jesus.—The interpretation of the Vision by Dr. Daniel Waterland, and by Dr. Delitzsch. How are the mighty fallen! The glorious empire of King Solomon, is now tottering to its fall. ‘lhe solemn warnings announced to that Sovereign, that the beautiful House which he had built, would be visited with the besum of destruction, on the rebellion of his subjects against the Lord-Jehovah, are on the eve of fulfilment. The kingdom of Judah, had fallen into a state of general defection and wickedness exceeding that which prevailed in the land of Israel, at the appearance of Elijah. The Priesthood had become corrupt, the sanctuary polluted, and the people tainted with the grossest vices of Gentile Idolatry. It pleased the Divine Ruler of the Hebrew Church to give the favoured nation, in these last days of their trial, a final chance of repentance ; and the promise, on their repentance, of the withdrawal of the threatened chastisements. As He had pleaded with the revolted Israel, by Elijah, and Elisha, so now He speaks to Judah by a succession of Divinely inspired TO ESATIAS, 189 Prophets, solemnly appointed to their office by the revelation to them of the J ehovah-Angel, the special Guardian of the Patriarchal and Levitical Covenants. These Prophets were entrusted with a threefold office, adapted to the exigencies of the times, They appealed to all ranks and classes, to the king and_ nobles, to the priests and people, by remonstrance, exhorta- tion, and rebuke. They announced beforehand the minutest details of the approaching calamities, They were empowered to forecast the future, to see beyond the punishment the gracious restoration, and to recognize amidst the impending wrath an assurance of renewed mercies. Hsaias, the son of Amos, the first and most pre- eminent of these bold, and patriotic servants of the Lord Jehovah, was of a sacerdotal, if not of a noble, descent. He lived during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and partly of Manasseh, and through sixty years of toil and conflict partook of the good and evil of those alternating righteous or unrighteous* Sovereigns. He gives the following account of his Divine appointment to his high office :—“ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord (Jehovah) sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple: and above it stood the seraphims crying one to another, ‘ Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, (more literally, Sr a a a a a * Cf. Stanley’s “ Lectures on Jewish History,” vol. ii., p. 454, 190 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Jehovah of Hosts), the earth is full of thy glory.’ And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.” In this Divine vision vouchsafed to the Prophet there are many correspondencies with the earlier Theophanies, recorded in the former periods of He- brew history. Here we have (i.) the same Almighty “voice”’ speaking to Hsaias, as had addressed Moses at Horeb, Balaam on his journey, Joshua by Jericho, Samuel on his youthful call at Shiloh, (ii.) the “ holy house filled with smoke,” as at the consecration of the tabernacle, and at the Dedication of the Temple; (aii.) the posts of the door, the pediments of the threshold, the lowest foundations of the Temple, are stirred with reverential awe, as at the giving of the Law, ‘the earth trembled and quaked, the very foundations also of the hills shook,” (iv.) the alternate choirs of Angels lifting up their voices in adoration of the Lord of Hosts, even as the thousands of Angels were present at the Divine manifestation on Mount Sinai. The prophet more- over, on hearing ‘‘the voice of him that cried,” experiences that mystic fear which ever fell on those admitted to the vision of the Divine Angel of the Covenant, and makes his humble confession, “ Woe is me for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips,” and assigns this reason for his fear ‘‘ for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord (Jehovah) of Hosts ;”’ the very same Divine Being to whom Joshua bent in adoration, and for whose glory Elijah was so DOTESATAS. IgI jealous. The allocation of the Temple again as the scene of this vision implies that the Lord Jehovah, sitting on his throne, is none other than Jesus, the _“ Angel-Jehovah” sitting on His Mercy-seat. The testimony of the Evangelist St. John is con- clusive on this point. He declares in the precisest Janguage, that the Lord Jehovah, whom Esaias saw in his vision, was the Jehovah, Jesus-Christ (John xi.). ‘These things, said Hsaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him.” Thus, the beloved disciple identifies the Person and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the glory and the Person of the Lord Jehovah, as revealed in this vision to Hsaias. We would confirm the correctness of this interpre- tation by the authority of two learned Commentators. Dr. Daniel Waterland* writes: “It is as certain as words can make it, from what St. John says, that the Son’s glory was seen, and that He was the Jehovah of whom the prophet spake.” Dr. Delitzsch,+ with bolder hermeneutics, thus expresses himself: “The prophet sees, the Lord of all ‘ seated upon the throne,’ and in human form (Hzek. i. 26), as is proved by the robe with a train, whose flowing ends, or borders filled the hall. The Septuagint, Targum, and Vul- gate have dropped the figure of the robe and train, as too anthropomorphic; but St. John in his Gospel BWV OLS, VOlai. a DA19: } Biblical Commentary on prophecies of Isaiah, vol. i., p. 190. Clark’s Foreign Theological Library. 192 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE xl. 41, is bold enough to say that it was Jesus whom Hsaias saw. And truly so, for ‘the Incarnation of God’ is the truth embodied in all the Scriptural Anthropomorphisms, and the Name of Jesus is the manifested mystery of the Name Jehovah.” III.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO JEREMIAH. The persecution of Jeremiah. — The chief purport of his writings.—His Mission to Gentile nations.—His Divine Commission.—An Appearance of the Angel-Jehovah.—Its twofold Manifestation. —Its acknowledgments by Jere- miah.—The testimony and Dictum of Dr. Lowth. THE second great Prophet raised up in those last hours of Judah’s extremity was Jeremiah, a priest of the Levitical city of Anathoth, in the tribe of Ben- jamin. He was even beyond his great predecessor Elijah, an example of patience in sufferings. He not only shared all the privations, famine, pains and horrors resulting from the lengthened resistance of Jerusalem to the invading armies of Chaldea, but he was the victim to the hatred and persecution of his own countrymen, by whom he was evil-entreated, and cast into the lowest dungeon, on account of hig faithful adherence to his Divine Mission, and of his persistent refusal to alter, or to withhold the Divine message with which he was entrusted. His was no pleasant task. The chief purport of TO ¥EREMIAH. 193 ee the tidings revealed to him regarding his own countrymen were the certain approaching destruction of the Temple, the speedy capture of the city, and the sure removal of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea to Babylon, by reason of their offensive and polluted idolatries. His mission extended beyond the limits of Judea, and he described with prophetic ken the evil fortunes and impending calamities of Egypt, Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Babylon. He was spe- cially “set over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jer. i. 10). Jeremiah gives thisaccount of his Appointment to his high office, “Then the Word of the Lord. (Jehovah) came to me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord God! (Adonai Jehovah!) behold, 1 cannot speak; for I amachild. But the Lord (Jehovah) said unto me, Say not I am achild: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord (Jehovah). Then the Lord (Jehovah) put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord (Jehovah) said, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth ” (Jer. i. 6). The learned theologian, Dr. William Lowth, writes in his Commentary on these verses, “This seems to 13 194 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE have been a visible appearance of the Divine Majesty, performed by the Son of God, or the second person of the Blessed Trinity.” This interpretation is borne out by the expressions of the sacred narrative: some of which, as “‘the putting forth the hand, and touch- ing the mouth of the Prophet” imply the presence of a corporeal Form, while the whole history demon- strates the inherent Divinity and Almightyness of the sublime Speaker. The actions of Jeremiah on this Divine Appearance of the Lord Jehovah are similar to those recorded of other favoured recipients of the same sublime vision. Like Moses and Gideon he expressed his weakness* and unworthiness to discharge the high task to which he was called, “I cannot speak: for I am a child,” and he received, after their example, the. full assurance of Divine strength, protection, safety, and deliverance by the power of the Most High. If we accept the dictum of Dr. Lowth, that “it was the unanimous sense of the ancient Church that all the Divine Appearances in the Old Testament were made by the Son of God, by whom all the affairs of the Church were ordered from the beginning’? we shall not greatly err in enumerating this Divine Commission to Jeremiah among the recorded Manifestations of the Angel- Jehovah of the Levitical Covenant. * We cannot infer from hence that Jeremy was at this time within the years of childhood: for he may call himself a child with the view of extenuating his abilities —Lowth in locum.—See note, p. 181. TO EZEKIEL. 195 ~ denn tna eae Tele ae ie Eee a ae IV.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO EZEKIEL. Ezekiel at Chebar.—His communications to his fellow-cap- tives.—Their symbolism indicates terrible sufferings.—The appointment of Ezekiel to his high office.—The mystic Cherubim.—The Divine Appearance to Ezekiel.—Itg signi- ficance.—Its reference to the Person of Jesus Christ.— Testimonies to that effect—The Vision of Ezekiel at Jerusalem.—The series of abominations in the Temple.— The image of Jealousy.—The evil doings of the Sanhedrin, of the Priests and Levites, of the Jewish women.—The preparation for judgment.—The threefold withdrawal of the Divine Shekinah-Glory.—The speedy retribution. Tue Prophet Ezekiel, son of Buzi, descended from a sacerdotal family, was carried away to Babylon, in the train of King Jehoiakim, among the first batch of captives deported from Jerusalem by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. He was located with his fellow- countrymen on the bank of the river Chebar, a tributary of the Euphrates, in a beautiful* and fertile region of the Province of Babylon. Here he was called upon to assure the elders and people of his nation of the certain fulfilment of the judgements and calamities foretold by his contemporary Jeremiah to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. He was not only empowered by oraland written prophecies to declare in stern and awe-stirring language the chastisements Se ee ee * Sir H. A. Layard describes the Chebar as flowing through the richest pastures and meadows, its banks covered with flowers of every hue, and presenting the loveliest scene he every beheld.—Layard’s Nineveh. 13°* 196 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE impending over the nation, but he was required to represent to the captives at Chebar by a series of outward and visible acts, the fearful sufferings to be endured by their countrymen in Judea. He was commanded to picture on a tile of baked clay the portraiture of asiege; toeat cakes mixed with ordure ; to cut off his hair, and to burn part, and to disperse part to the winds; to bind himself in bands; to remove his goods from his house by stealth; to lay prostrate on the earth ; to eat bread and drink water by scanty measure; to seethe a caldron of broth ona coal-fire, and to cast off the scum thereof; to refrain from lamentation for his deceased wife, and thus to pourtray the miseries, the scarcity, the bonds, the humiliation, the dispersion, the horrors (exceeding the possibility of a fitting lamentation), which awaited the king, nobles, and people yet remaining in Jerusalem. The prophet Ezekiel gives a minute account of his call to his high office. The proof of his Divine appointment was in his case the more necessary, as the symbols of the Divine Presence were now on the eve of being removed from the Holy Temple, and the visible Church was about to be transferred from Judea, and to be located for a time in the wilderness of Heathendom. Ezekiel first relates the represent ition to him on the banks of the Chebar of the myst: Cherubim. Whether this account be a portraiture of the Cherubim, the ordinary retinue of the Lord Jehovah, or whether it be a vast and ROPE ZERTET.. 197 a Ry intricate imagery depicted for the occasion, to represent the universal providence, the omnipotent might, the surpassing majesty, and irresistible judg- ments of Almighty God, the sacred narrative dis- tinetly shows that Ezekiel received his Divine Commission to speak to his exiled fellow-countrymen in the name of the Lord Jehovah. The Prophet thus relates the appearance of the vision, “ And above the firmament that was over their (the Cheru- bim) heads, was the appearance of a sapphire stone, and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man upon it.... As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloudin the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the like- ness of the Glory of the Lord (Jehovah). And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard:a voice of one that spake” (Hzek. i. 23, 4, 5). The sacred narrative distinctly reveals that there were present to the Prophet the same “ Glory of the Lord,” and the same “Divine voice speaking from heaven” which had been at all times the recognized symbols of the peculiar Divine Guardian and Protector of the Patriarchal and Levitical Dispensations. He receives in a word, his appointment as a Prophet, from the Angel-Jehovah speaking out of the midst of a burning flame. The following comments on this vision are worthy of special consideration. ‘ Ezekiel now advances to the highest point in the vision. Having mentioned the expanse in relation to the 198 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE figures underneath it, his eye catches a glance of the throne of the Almighty, occupying a place above it, and the Divine Being himself as there enthroned in human form. This Divine manifestation is one of the most remarkable Theophanies of the Old Tes- tament. While like other anthropomorphic appear- ances of the Deity, it was prelusive of the future incarnate state of the Logos, it distinctly and specially recognizes the God-man the Redeemer in His character as the Inflictor* of punishment upon His enemies. The Theophany exhibits humanity upon the throne invested with all the glory of Deity.”+ We are justified, is the verdict of the ‘“Speaker’s Commentary,” in maintaining that the Revelation of the Divine glory here made to Ezekiel has its consummation and fulfilment in the Person of Christ, the only begotten of God: a con- clusion which is borne out and indeed established beyond dispute by the identification of Him, of whom zekiel saw the appearance upon a throne, with the Ancient of Days, whom Daniel saw enthroned, and described in terms afterwards employed by St. John to describe Him, who announced Himself thus “I am the first and the last, I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore.” t * Cf. 2 Thess. i. 7-9; Rev. xix. 11-16. 7 Cf. The Book of Ezekiel, translated by E. Henderson, p.p., pp. 8-11. Hamilton and Adams. t ‘ Speaker’s Commentary,” vol. vi., p. 25. TO EZEKIEL. 199 The prophet Ezekiel is favoured at the expiration of a year, with a second manifestation of the Divine Presence, and at its termination is conveyed in spirit to the city of Jerusalem. Here he has brought to his view @ panoramic representation of the whole series of idolatrous abominations, with which the holy sanctuary on Mount Zion, was degraded and defiled. The prophet first sees in the very vestibule of the Temple an idol figure of Baal, thence named the “image of jealousy,” as claiming (in rivalry of the Lord Jehovah) the adoration of the worshipper on his entrance to the building. ; The next object of this vision is an inner chamber of the Temple, on the walls of which were depicted every form of creeping things and of abominable beasts “ derived from the idols of the land of Egypt.” Here the seventy men of the ancients of the house of -Israel, the Sanhedrin, the national council of the Jews, whose office it was to punish idolatrous practices, are represented as the chief leaders in the degrading superstition, every man having his censer in his hand, and offering, amidst the ascending clouds of incense, supplications to the Idols. Greater abom- inations even than these are shown to the Prophet. The very women, who by the requirements of the Mosaic Law were prohibited all access to the sacred precincts beyond the court of the women* intrude * Court of the women, called in Scripture the new court (2 Chron. xv. 5), and the outer court (Hizek. xlvi. 21), was so 200 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE into the very chambers of the Temple, and pollute its courts by their libidinous Jamentations and weeping for Tammuz.* The very members of the Aaronic and Levitical families share the universal profanity. The ‘five and twenty men depicted in this portion of the vision represent the monthly course of the twelve Priests, and the twelve Levites deputed to conduct the Temple services, and these officiating Ministers of the Holy Sanctuary, with the High Priest at their head, are seen between the porch and the altar, as turning their backs in contempt and mockery upon Him “ who dwelleth between the Cherubim,” and as bowing their heads in adoration towards the rising Sun. At the conclusion of this fearful delineation of the abominations which defiled the holy house, the prophet is called upon to witness the preparation for designated by the Jews, not because none but women were allowed to enter it, but because it was their appointed place of worship, beyond which they might not go: unless when they brought a sacrifice, in which case they went forward to the court of Israel.—Cf. Temple, in Calmet’s Dictionary. * Tammuz came next behind Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer’s day, Whose wanton passions, in the sacred porch Kzekiel saw, when by the vision led His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judahs. —WMilton’s Paradise Lost, Book i. IO EZEKIEL, 201 ee ee ee SS the speedy outpouring of the Divine judgments. He describes the scattering of coals of fire from the hands of the mystic Cherubim on the devoted city, and records the steps and gradations by which the symbols of the Divine Presence are removed from the Sanctuary of Mount Zion. “ The glory of the Lord ”’ the pillar of cloud and fire, the wondrous Shekinah, the recognized symbol of the Angel-J ehovah, went up from between the Cherubim, or from the Mercy-seat within the vail, and stood over the threshold of the house (Ezek. x. 4). The next step in the Divine de- sertion of the Temple was the departure from the threshold to the Hast gate* of the Lord’s House (Hzek. x. 18, 19), and after this the prophet saw “the glory of the Lord” go up from the midst of the city, and stand upon the Mount of Olives (Ezek. xi. 23). It is a painful history. In this visible witnessing by Ezekiel of the withdrawal of that Divine Presence by which the Temple, at its Dedica- tion by King Solomon, had been solemnly con- secrated, the last obstacle to the execution of the Divine judgments was removed. The general cor- ruption pervading princes, priests, and people, the universal idolatries of the Sanhedrin, of the Aaronic SSS a a ee Oe ee ee * The front or entrance to the Temple was on the eastern side, and consequently facing the Mount of Olives, which commands a noble prospect of the building. Solomon’s porch was a portion of this eastern facade.—Calmet’s Dictionary. Temple. 202 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE and Levitical families, of the laity, and of the women met a deserved and speedy retribution, in the destruction of the Temple, the desolation of the land, the utter subjugation and captivity of the people. V.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO DANIEL. The promise of a ‘Little Sanctuary.”—Its fulfilment in Daniel.—His remarkable history.—His providential eleva- tion at Babylon.—His honours continued by Darius.— His protection of his countrymen.—Daniel a true prophet. —His most remarkable prophecies.—The Divine mani- festation to Daniel.—Its twofold character.—Its subsequent confirmations. ‘In the midst of wrath God doth remember mercy.” The Divine assurance of protection in the land of their captivity was pronounced previously to the actual infliction of the threatened judgments on the inhabitants of Judea: “ Although I have cast them off among the Heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be as a little sanctuary* in the countries where they shall come ”’ (Ezek. xi. 16). The chief agent and instrument of this promised protection in the land of Babylon, was the prophet * “ As a sanctuary for a short time.”—Cf. Horsley’s Criti- cisms, vol. ili., p. 136. TO DANIEL, 203 Daniel. His history is mostremarkable. Brought to Babylon among the earliest captives in the train of King Jehoiakim, and being himself a scion of the Davidic royal family, Daniel, on account of the comeliness of his person, is reserved for attendance in the Court of Nebuchadnezzar. He refuses how- ever to partake of the luxuries of the Palace, and asks permission to eat only the bread and water of affliction. At the end of three years of training and instruction, he is summoned before his conqueror, and is enabled to recall and to interpret a dream, which greatly troubled his Sovereign, and is consequently rewarded by an admission to the chief seat in his Council-chamber; so that under the superintending Providence* of Almighty God, a Jew, zealous for the faith of his fathers, is raised to the Viziership of the Empire of Babylon for the protection of his country- men during their captivity. The same Divine care secures the continued * The elevation of Daniel was not the only proof of the Divine care for the Hebrew captives. The rescue of the three martyr Rulers from the burning fiery furnace would impress the Babylonians with a sense of the power of the Lord God of the Hebrews. After a similar fashion the deliverance of Daniel would create a like conviction upon the counsellors of the new dynasty of the Medes and Persians, who were hitherto strangers to the knowledge of the Lord Jehovah. Both miracles would, too, prove to the Jewish captives that the Guardian Deity of their nation was still mindful of them in the low estate of suffering and exile. 204 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE presence of Daniel in the court of the new dynasty of the Medes and Persians. Darius, the Conqueror of Babylon could not be ignorant of the merits of a Counsellor, who had predicted his success, and he secures the good services of the prophet, and retains him in his post of authority and influence. “He sets over his new kingdom one hundred and twenty princes, and three presidents, over whom Daniel was first’ (Daniel vi. 2, 3). The prophet uses his high position for the benefit of his countrymen, and after a short interval obtains from his grateful master an Imperial decree for the restoration of the captives to their own land, and for the rebuilding of the sacred sanctuary of their Fathers. The prophet Daniel gives no account of any call or Divine appointment to his high office. He is however enrolled among “the goodly fellowship of the prophets,” on sufficient testimony. He is men- tioned by Ezekiel with peculiar honour (Ezek. xiv. 20). He alone of all men is entitled in the Holy Scrip- tures as “the greatly beloved of God” (Daniel ix. 23). He is spoken of by our Blessed Lord as “Daniel, the prophet’ (Matt. xxiv. 15). His numerous, distinct, and circumstantial predictions regarding the four great kingdoms of the ancient world (two of which in his day had not come into existence) and his foretelling with such accurate prescience the rise of a fifth, spiritual monarchy, “the stone cut out without hands,” which was to supersede all the preceding kingdoms, amply justify TO DANIEL. 205 ee Se his claim to the gift of prophetic inspiration. The Prophet Daniel, too, in his famous prediction of the seventy and two weeks announced with greater preciseness than any of his predecessors, the certain time and advent of the Megsias. There was only one Divine Appearance vouch- safed to the Prophet Daniel. “I saw in the night,” says the Prophet, “visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him, And there was given unto him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him: hig dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel vii. 13, 14). Without attempting to explain this mysterious and majestic Appearance, we may see, that the Prophet associates the Humanity of the Person revealed to him as “one like the Son of Man,” with an exaltation of the same Person into the heavens, and with his right to exercise an everlasting dominion over all peoples, nations, and languages. Is there not here, in the representation of a glorious human form enthroned on high, a preludial anticipation of Him, who at His first advent came in great humility, but who will come again in glorious majesty to judge the quick, anddead? Is notthe angelicmessage at a later time to the blessed virgin-maiden at Nazareth, the very echo of this twofold vision revealed to the Prophet, 206 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ‘‘ Behold, thou shalt bring forth a son, and shall call His Name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever: and of his kingdom there shall be no end”? (Lukei. 31-33). Did not our Blessed Lord assume to Himself this title “ Son of Man” during the course of His per- manent human manifestation, and yet unite with it a claim to the loftiest supremacy, to an universal judg- ment, and to the sublimest exaltation? ‘‘ Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man* sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven ” (St. Matt. xxvi. 64). May not a fitting corroboration of this great Appearance to Daniel be, further, found in the declaration of St. Paul, “God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every Name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, of things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is (Lord) Jehovah, to the glory of God the Father” (Philip. ii. 9, 10). * See this title ‘Son of Man” exemplified in the succeeding portion of this volume. Book iy. § xi. TO ZECHARIAH. 207 a VI—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ZECHARIAH. The change in the Jewish fortunes.—The return from Babylon. —The two edicts for a Restoration of the Jews.—The . Successful efforts of Nehemiah.—The Reconstruction of the Temple.—The re-organization ofthe Legislature, and priest- hood.—The First Vision of Zechariah.—Its explanation.— Its assurance ofa blessing.—The Second Vision of Zechariah —lIts twofold division.—Its testimony tothe Angel-Jehovah. —The identity of the Lord Jesus Christ with the very Jeho- vah.—The purpose of these Visions.—Two other predictions of Zechariah.—Their fulfilment.— A general resumé.— These Manifestations the fitting preludes of the Incarnation. A great change had been effected in the fortunes, and position of the Jewish captives in Babylon, when Zechariah was called to the Prophetical office. The first decree granted to Daniel permitting the return of his countrymen to their own land had from various. causes become inoperative. A second edict given by Darius Hytaspes to his cup-bearer, Nehe- miah, brought a much larger number of the captives to Jerusalem. The Reconstruction of the Temple was at once pressed forward under the energetic guidance of Zerubbabel. The functions of the legislature, and the courses of the priesthood were re-organized by Ezra and Nehemiah. Under these auspicious circumstances the Prophet Zechariah is favoured with an Appearance of the Angel-Jehovah, and is empowered to announce to the re-gathered people, a renewal of the Divine favour, and an assurance of continued protection. 208 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ee The Prophet Zechariah in his first Vision (i. 7-16) sees a man seated on a red horse, and accompanied by riders on red, brown, and white horses. He recognizes in the foremost rider the Angel-Jehovah. On demanding from an interpreter Angel, what the Vision may mean, he learns that these attendant riders are the servants of the Lord Jehovah, who had returned from a mission to the nations, and reported that the whole earth was quiet, and that no nation was seeking the hurt of the favoured people. Whereupon the “ Angel-Jehovah is represented as making intercession with Jehovah for the deliver- ance of the Jewish nation; as the appointed period of their captivity had been accomplished. An inter- preter Angel conveys to the Prophet the assurance SS eee * The language of Zechariah in these Visions is exceedingly mystical and mysterious, and it may admit of an intelligible interpretation. The thicket of myrtles may fitly represent the church of the chosen nation at this time. It was not exalted as a proud cedar, or lofty mountain, but like a modest myrtle, hid ina hollow, and not accounted of among the great Heathen kingdoms. The Angel of the Lord appears seated upon a horse, and that a red horse to show the rapidity with which His judgments are accomplished, while the colour of the horse sets forth His indignation against His heathen foes for wrath is bloody, and therefore red. The inferior angels, who surround the Angel of the Lord, are a symbolical representation of the idea that all the requisite means are at His command for the salvation of His people, and the destruction of His foes.—Heng- stenberg’s Christology of the Old Testament, vol. iii., 309-11 pp. Clark, Edinburgh, TO ZECHARIAH. 209 that this Intercessory supplication had prevailed : and that the Divine purpose would be established in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and in the visitation of the nations which had oppressed her. In this first vision, we obtain a glimpse of a human manifestation in the Divine Person of the interceding Angel of the Covenant. The next Vision presented to Zechariah may he divided into two portions. The first part consists of the second chapter, 7th, 8th and 9th verses, ‘‘ Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon. For thus saith the Lord (Jehovah) of Hosts, after the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you; for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye: For, behold, I will shake my hand unto them, and they shall bea spoil to their ser- vants; and ye shall know that the Lord (Jehovah) of Hostshathsent me.” This mysterious message assures the Prophet, and his countrymen that the Heathen nations (after their short-lived glory in the capture of Jerusalem,) should in their turn *be visited by judg- ments and chastisements. This promised avenger of the sufferings of the Jewish captive shows himself to be the very Jehovah by his personal exercise of a plenary Divine authority in the retribution of the persecutors of his people; and yet he announces him- self, as sent by Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts. The second portion of this Vision is contained in this second chapter, ver. 10,11. “ Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come and I will dwell 14, 210 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE in the midst of thee, saith the Lord (Jehovah), and many nations shall be joined to the Jehovah in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord (Jehovah) of hosts hath sent me unto thee.” The Rey. George Stanley Faber* gives the following exposition of this difficult passage. “The period assigned for this dwelling of Jehovah, sent by Jehovah, in the midst of Judah, is that when the nations should be joined to this august Messenger, and should become His people. But events have demonstrated the period, thus described, to be the period of our Lord’s personal ministry, and of the early preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles. Hence it must needs follow that the sent Jehovah, fore- told by Zechariah, is no other than Christ. But the whole analogy of the Hebrew Scripture proves that the sent Jehovah is the same person as the Angel, or Messenger of Jehovah, whom we have already seen to be the God both of the Patriarchs, and of the Israelites. Therefore Christ is that Angel of Jeho- vah, who so repeatedly manifested Himself under a human form during the continuance of the two first dispensations.”’ Zechariah is favoured with other Visions to the same purport, viz. the manifestation to him of a Divine Person, exercising the exclusively Divine prerogative of ruling the affairs of mankind, and yet * Hore Mosaice, vol, ii., p. 113. LOS ZECHARIAH: 211 mae ee a as “sent by the Lord of Hosts.” The prophet, too, as his predecessors have done, enables us to identify “the sent Jehovah” of his Visions, with our Lord Jesus Christ. What other explanation -can be offered of the remarkable declaration Callies 7, “ Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord (Jehovah) of Hosts,” except it be the assertion that the Divinely appointed Shepherd of Israel, “the man Christ Jesus,” is Himself Jehovah, the very fellow of the Lord of HostsP The Prophet again represents the Lord Jehovah as speaking thus concerning Himself. “They the (favoured nation) shall look on Me (Jehovah) whom they have pierced ” (Zech. xii. 10). The Evangelist St. John (xix. 37) makes these words refer to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be fulfilled in His sufferings. He thus identifies the “ Incarnate Jehovah” with “the Jehovah” described by the prophets of the earlier Dispensation. | The Covenant nation so lately punished for its idolatrous pollutions of the Temple, is now by these Visions of Zechariah encouraged in its Restoration. The late captives in Babylon are again brought to their own land, that the spiritual promises made to their forefather Abraham, and to their royal Prince David, may be fulfilled, and that in them, and their descendants all nations may be blessed. We have thus examined, more or less minutely, every Divine Appearance recorded to have been granted to Chieftain, Patriarch, or Prophet in the 14 * 212 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE. Old Testament. We have thereby established an unanswerable Demonstration of the personal and providential government of human affairs, by the visible intervention of a Divine Agency in the chief crises, trials, and exigencies of the Hebrew people. We have further found from the sacred narrative, and from the collation of event with event, and of Scripture with Scripture, abundant testimony to the occasional manifestation (throughout a long period of history) of a mysterious Divine Messenger, entitled the “ Angel-Jehovah,”’ or “the Angel of the Lord” ; who appeared, occasionally apparelled in human form, and yet at the same time invested with the prerogatives, attributes, and Majesty of God. What is the conclusion to be deduced from these facts? May we not legitimately regard them as designed and purposed adumbrations and preludes of a later Revelation ? May not these antecedent manifesta- tions, under the earlier Dispensations, of One uniting in Himself the form of a Man with the glory of a Divine Majesty, be considered as the fitting preparations for the making known in the fulness of time, the great cardinal “‘ Mystery of the Holy Incarnation,” by which this “ Angel of the Lord,” partaking of man’s nature by His wondrous work, tabernacled for a season aS @ man with men, and yet proved Himself during His human pilgrim- age (by His wondrous works of Sovereignty over the realm of nature, over the inhabitants of the invisible world, over the powers of the grave, and by APPENDIX A. 213 His subsequent visible Ascension as a Man into the heavens, returning to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was) to be very God of very God, who was manifest in the flesh. APPENDIX A. ON THE SIN OF JEROBOAM. JEROBOAM is always spoken of in holy Scripture in strong terms of reprobation “as Jeroboam son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.” What was the conduct that thus so vehemently excited the Divine Indignation P_ Jeroboam was placed in this difficult position: He desired to prevent his new subjects from attendance at Jerusalem on the three great annual feasts required by the Mosaic Law, lest their loyalty towards himself should be tampered with by the adherents of Rehoboam; and at the same time he was anxious not to shock their religious instincts by prohibiting the worship of the Lord Jehovah. He determines therefore to erect at either extremity of his kingdom at Dan and Bethel, two Cherubs, the exact counterparts, the precise models, the very duplicates, the ‘‘ very image and superscription” of the sacred mystic figures over the ark in the Temple ; and he bids his subjects to worship before them. “ It 214 APPENDIX A. is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: Behold thy Gods O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings xi1.28). He thus sought to secure the exclusive obedience of his people to him- self, and yet enjoined on them a continued acknow- ledgment of Jehovah, as the God of the Ten, no less than of the T'wo, Tribes. In what then consisted his “sin?” Jeroboam in this proposal kept the First com- ‘mandment in the decalogue, but he wittingly broke the Second commandment, and committed a grievous transgression against the Divine Majesty of heaven, by presuming to worship Jehovah, in a manner not authorized by Jehovah (1 Kings xii. 33). This impiety of Jeroboam was solemnly rebuked, by the Aaronic Priests and Levites relinquishing all their possessions, and returning to the land of Judea (2 Chron. xi. 13), by the denouncement of the new apostatic altar on the very day of its inauguration, in the hearing of Jeroboam and of his Court by the Prophet of Bethel (1 Kings xiii.); by the warning voice of Ahijah (1 Kings xiv. 6), foretelling the excision of himself, and of his family, and by the perpetual condemnation attached to his name throughout all ages, as ‘‘ Jeroboam son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin” (1 Kings xiv. 16). APPENDIX B. 215 APPENDIX B. ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE JEWS ON THE GENTILE NATIONS. Tue influence of the kingdoms of Israel and of Judah must have been very considerable upon the Gentile nations on their borders. The splendour of King Solomon, and the fame of his Temple brought the kingly Hiram, and the Queenly Sheba on a visit to Jerusalem. The Revelation by Hlisha of the secrets of a royal council-chamber, the victories of Israel over Moab, Syria, and Edom by a direct miraculous inter- vention, the supernatural destruction of the hosts of Sennacherib, the cure of Naaman the leader of the armies of Syria, the preaching of Jonah for forty days to Nineveh, the promulgation among the Gentiles of their coming woes and approaching sufferings by Jere- miah, Hoshea, and Nahum, the powerful protection of Almighty God afforded to the Hebrews in Babylon, the successive decrees of Nebuchadnezzar and of Darius demanding that through all the Provinces of their wide dominions due honours should be paid to the God of their Jewish captives, must have tended to impress all Gentile nations with a sense of the greatness and power of the Lord Jehovah. Above all these facts, the phenomenal, and hitherto unheard-of Restoration of the inhabitants of a con- quered country from the place of their captivity to their own land, must on the return of the Jews, and 216 APPENDIX B. on their rebuilding their Temple, have produced an universal conviction that a people so favoured were the objects in a special manner of Divine and omni- potent protection. The restored Temple would be to all Gentile nations a standing proof of the power, and prescience of the Lord Jehovah. On the other hand, it is to be remarked that Heathen nations were made the providential instru- ments of carrying out the Divine purposes towards his people. Thus the empire of the great Babylon was used for the punishment and captivity of Judah, while the triumphs of the Medes and Persians were the appointed precursors of its Restoration. The extensive but evanescent victories of Alexander the Great, led to the establishment of the Greek, as the common universal commercial language of the world, that the Jewish Scriptures translated into it, might be the more widely known, and that the Gentiles might be made their custodians against any later attempts of the Jews to alter, or to deny them. The vast iron rule of the Roman Emperors secured an universal peace, and prepared by their famous provincial roads, a highway for the preachers of good tidings. At the fulness of the appointed time of our Blessed Lord’s advent, there were Jews devout men dwelling amidst every nation under heaven, and these by their Synagogues and by their Scriptures made ‘‘proselytes of the gate,” from all sorts and conditions of men among their Gentile neighbours. Thus widely ramified and powerful was the Jewish APPENDIX B. 27 ee ee influence in the Heathen kingdoms. There was indeed no nation, taking an active part on the theatre of the world’s history, either anterior, or subsequent, to the first destruction of J erusalem, which was not brought into contact for good, or evil, with the people of the Jews. What a marvellous testimony do these facts afford to the truth, at all periods, of the very early declara- tion of the inspired Hebrew law-giver, “ When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the (Gentile) people, according to the number of the children of Israel’ (Deut. xxxii. 8). FROM THE BOOK IV, BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE CLOSE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON, I. Tue i fan Pies Tae IV. Tue Verlur VI. Tue “Vil. Tus VIII. Tue IX. THE X. THE 5 ES Wee PL Cae XIII. THe a ALN LAE XV. THE Summary of Contents. Divine APPEARANCE AT BETHLEHEM. First Divine APPHARANCE IN THE TEMPLE. Divine APPEARANCE at NaZzAReTu. SeconD Divine APPEARANCE IN THE TEMPLE. First Divinr APPEARANCE TO JOHN THE Baptist. Divinr APPEARANCE IN THE WILDERNESS. Second Divinz APPEARANCE TO JOHN THE Baptist. Divine APPEARANCE IN JUDHA AND GALILEE. Divine APPEARANCE IN THE Hoty Mount. Last Divine APPEARANCE IN THE TEMPLE. DiyinE APPEARANCE ON THE Mount oF CALVARY. Divine APPEARANCE ON THE Mount or OLIVES. Divinr APPEARANCE TO S. STEPHEN. Divinzt APPEARANCE TO 8S. Paut. DivinE APPEARANCE TO §S, JOHN. Appenndix A.—On THE Curistian “ Seguiuag.” = bm | BOOK IV. I.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE AT BETHLEHEM. The completion of the appointed time.—The peculiar purpose of the later Dispensation.—The twofold character of the Angel-Jehovah.—Its perfect development.—The renewal of the Divine credentials.—Prophecy.—Miracles.—Visions of Angels.—The manifestation of the Shekinah.—The human birth marked by a galaxy of wonders. THE Canon of the Old Testament had been closed, the Voice of Prophecy silenced, and the Divine manifestation of the Angel-Jehovah withheld for the space of four centuries. When, however, the fulness of the appointed time had come, and the antecedent preparation, (by the propagation throughout the civilized earth of the Greek Translation of the Jewish Scriptures, by the humiliation of the Hebrew people to a low estate suitable to the advent from them of a lowly Redeemer, by the rise of the dominant power of Rome required for the fulfilment of contrariant prophecies, by the universal corruption* of human society proving the need of a Divine Teacher,) had been accomplished, then, the great mystery of the * The extreme necessities of man coincide with the highest manifestation of the love of God. Westcott’s Characteristics of Miracles, p. 8. 222 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE permanent Appearance of the Angel-Jehovah, by a visible Incarnation* was fully revealed. The two earlier Dispensations of the Patriarchal and Levitical Churches have already afforded glimpses of the occasional union of a human and of a Divine Presence in the Person of the Angel-Jehovah. The exhibition of these two manifestations, in their perfect development in one Divine Person, is the peculiar purpose of the later Dispensation. The “ perfect manhood’ of the Angel-Jehovah is attested by His human birth and growth, as a youth and man, by His endurance of human sorrows, by His conflict with the Tempter of mankind, by his subjection unto Death. The “perfect Godhead” of the Angel- Jehovah,t while enshrined in the garment of the * By this act, His Mediatorship was at length and for ever constituted in its full absolute pre-ordained completeness and perfection. That which all along had been prepared for and foretold, that towards which all things had been tending, at length was fully realized. The most stupendous event happened, which thought can conceive; the most stupendous, whether in itself, or its consequences; consequences which can have no limit, whether in the ranks of created existence, or through the process of the unending future. Medd’s Bampton Lectures, p. 284. t| We may even, a priori, maintain it to be necessary that Christianity should acknowledge as its God the same Angel- Jehovah who was wont corporeally to manifest himself under the two first dispensations..... Unless such be the charac- teristics of the third, it is plain, from the view we have taken of the two first, that the concinnity of the whole scheme will AT BETHLEHEM. 223 flesh, is proved beyond all contradiction, in His triumphant resistance to the Tempter, in Hig won- drous works of healing, in His dominion over the elements of Nature, in His authority over evil spirits, in His investiture with the “excellent glory ” on the Mount of Transfiguration, in His conquest over the grave, in His visible Ascension into the heavens. Kivery phase of the human life of the Lord-Jesus, and every event related of Him as a Man, is accom- panied by some act, or word, or claim evidencing His superhuman character. While born as an infant of humble but royal lineage, and while His reputed father is crowded out by the throng of travellers from the public khan, or Caravanserai at Bethlehem, many signs and tokens are afforded of His Divine Personality manifest in the flesh. All the ancient accustomed credentials of the Divine Presence are renewed. Visions of Angels* are restored to Zach- be entirely destroyed: for without such characteristics, the third can never be made to harmonize with its predecessors. Abstract them; and what becomes of that Angel of Jehovah, who was confessedly the God of Patriarchism, and of the Law, and who is solemnly announced as coming to his own Temple preceded by an extraordinary herald mystically announced as Elijah? In that case, the Angel of Jehovah will have suddenly laid down his peculiar office as God’s Messenger: in that case he will have vanished from our eyes, as if he had never been: in that case the two more ancient Dispensations are superior in dignity to the last.—Faber’s Hore Mosaice, vol. ii., p. 119. * The Message of the Angel to Zacharias is a testimony to 224 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE arias in the Temple, and to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Nazareth. Miracles are again recognized in the dumbness and restored speech of Zacharias. The Spirit of Prophecy is again outpoured in the saluta- tion of Elizabeth, in the predictions of the saintly Anna, and the benediction of the aged Symeon. The birth of the wondrous child is announced to the Virgin-mother by Angel-lips in terms asserting His Divine prerogatives, as the Son of the Highest ; or as the very fellow of Jehovah, as the heir to the throne of His father David, as the Ruler in a Kingdom which shall have no end. And lastly to Jewish shepherds, abiding in the field, watching their flocks by night on the slopes of Bethlehem, the pavilion of heaven is opened, and the “Glory of the Lord,” shines round about them; 7.e. they see the bright symbol of the Divine. Presence which accompanied the Angel- Jehovah while He led the people out of the land of Egypt, and directed their paths in the wilderness, and illuminated their first Temple at its Dedication. These Shepherds, as all their predecessors wit- nessing that sight, “were sore afraid.” The Angel messenger dismisses their fears, and in the most Jesus as the Lord Jehovah. Of John Baptist the forerunner of Jesus Christ it ig announced, ‘“‘ Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Jehovah (Lord) their God.” Is there not here an intimation on the very threshold of the New Testament by the Arch-angel’s lips, that the Saviour about to come in the form of a man, is Himself Jehovah ? AT. BETHLEHEM. 225 explicit terms identifies the new-born babe with the Divine Angel-Jehovah of their nation. “ Behold, I bring you the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, tidings of great joy. Unto you is born, this very day, in the city of your former King, the Saviour, which is Christ the Lord (the Jehovah).” The truth of this message is confirmed by the vision of a multitude of those heavenly attendants, who sang together when the foundations of the earth were laid, who were present at the delivery of the Law at Sinai, and who (desirous to look into the mysterious process of the Divine dealings with man- kind) now welcome to earth their Lord and King, as He humbles Himself to assume the nature of man, that He might effect those mighty triumphs over Sin, and Death, and Satan, which none buta Saviour uniting in himself a Divine and human nature could possibly accomplish. Thus the humiliation of a human birth is abrogated and compensated for by an overwhelming galaxy of signs and wonders, attesting, the birth of “the Son of the Highest;” the Incarna- tion of “the fellow of Jehovah;” the reality of the great mystery of godliness—“ He who* was manifest * “And have we lost the Divinity of Christ by reading for ‘God,’ ‘who’? Judge ye. ‘Manifested in flesh ’—do we say that of one who is a mere man? Do we speak of the very chiefest of saints or heroes as having at his birth been ‘ mani- fested in flesh’? The very words assert pre-existence. He who is manifested in flesh was before. Can any words point 15 226 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached to the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” II.—THE FIRST DIVINE APPEARANCE IN THE TEMPLE. Concomitancy of wondrous signs.—The presentation in the Temple.—Description of the assembled group. — The announcements of Simeon, and of Anna.—The spectators in the Temple. Tur Incarnation of our Blessed Lord, in the fulness of time at Bethlehem cannot conceal the glories of His Divine nature. The same remarkable con- comitancy of wondrous signs which surrounded His Nativity is to be traced in every succeeding development of His human infancy. Presented in the Temple, and redeemed as a “‘ First-born’’* by the customary payment according to the requirement of us back more significantly to the Eternal Word, who was in the beginning with God, and was God, and who in the fulness of time was made flesh, that He might first tabernacle among us, and then, risen and exalted, give us out of His fulness grace for grace.”—Dean Vaughan’s ‘ Authorized or Revised ?” p. 9, 10. * Sicut igitur humillimé natus est Dominus, humilius cir- cumcisus, notatus signo peccatoris, sic hoc die quadragesimo tanquam servus offertur et redimitur.—Antiquitatum Litur- gicarum Arcana, Tom.1i., p. 352. IN THE TEMPLE. 224 ee eee the Jewish Law, on the fortieth day after His birth He is solemnly announced to be the Lord’s, or Jehovah’s Christ. ; Never before had such a holy group been present in a Temple made with hands. Mary, the most favoured of Jewish women, J oseph, her aged protector, the most honoured of human husbands, Simeon,* a learned Rabbi of the Sanhedrin, Anna, the inspired prophetess, stand beside the holy offspring of the Virgin Mother, as she presents in her deep povertyt+ the humblest offering permitted by the Law. The crowd engaged in the courts of the Temple by their buying, selling, and money-changing, pay no regard to the obscure parents of the infant Jesus. The eye of faith alone discovers under the veil of the human — nature, the splendours of an immortal Majesty. Simeon, a just and devout man, waiting for the con- solation of Israel, to whom it had been revealed by the Holy-Ghost that he should not see death, until he had seen Jehovah’s Christ, came by the Spirit into the Temple, and taking up the holy child in his arms, blessed Jehovah as having seen Him, who was to be “the light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of His people Israel” (Luke ii. 32). The pious Prophetess SSS ee ee ee * It is conjectured that this might have been the famous Rabbi, the son of Hillel, and the father of Gamaliel. + Would not the Blessed Virgin have presented a more costly offering, if she had already before this fortieth day, received the gold of the gentile Magi? See next Chapter, Loe 228 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Anna coming in at the same time gave thanks like- wise, and spake of that lowly infant as the hope “‘of all them that looked for Redemption in Jerusalem ”’ (Luke 11. 38). Well might Joseph and Mary wonder at those things which were spoken! How must the spectators of that sight have been astonished, when they saw their honoured Rabbi, and noted Prophetess embrace before the assembled people in the courts of the Temple, the child of such lowly parents, and speak of Him in these glowing terms to those who waited for the consolation of the coming Messias in Israel. II].—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE AT NAZARETH. The wondrous meteor—The solemn Gentile Embassy.—The consultation by the Sanhedrin.—Its result.—The star-led journey to Nazareth.—The mystic gifts.—The proofs of the visit of the Magi to Nazareth. OTHER marvels attend the early infancy of the Jehovah-Jesus. He that condescended to be born for all, is willing that His Incarnation in human nature should be witnessed by all.* As the manifestation of the Divine Shekinah sent the Jewish Shepherds to kneel at the cradle of the wondrous infant at Bethle- hem, so a preternatural star, or meteor, brought the * Ab omnibus voluit agnosci, qui dignatus est omnibus nasci. Leo Magnus Sermo de Ephipanea. ALGNAZARET LH. 229 Representatives of Gentile nations to offer the homage of the Gentile world. Herod the titular Ruler of Judea, and his Jewish subjects, were alike disturbed at the sudden and unlooked-for appearance in their Capitol, of a solemn embassy, laden with rich gifts, and accompanied with all the pomp of Eastern Sovereignty, demanding leave, as the embassadors of their peoples, to offer their treasures and their allegiance to One lately born, asthe King of the Jews. The national council of the Sanhedrin is com- manded by Herod to meet in solemn debate, and to ascertain by an investigation of the sacred records, the birthplace of the predicted Prince. An authori- tative decree of the Jewish Council announces that out of Bethlehem of Ephrata shall come forth a Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting (Micah y. 3). These Eastern potentates, on obtaining this answer to their enquiries, heedless alike of the invitation of Herod, and of the fascina- tions of the Capitol, resume their journey, and rejoice to see the same mysterious light which had brought them to Jerusalem, again precede their steps, “ until it came and stood over where the young child was” (Matt. 11.9). How great on the termination of their journey, must have been the contrast between the expectations of these stranger visitors, and the actual sight presented to their view! Here were no precincts of a palace, no symbols of royalty, no warriors nor statesmen-advisers, no attendant crowds, nor flatter- ing courtiers. They found only a babe of humble 230 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE parentage, located in a lowly domicile, at Nazareth ; yet, with a firm faith in the Divine guidance which had directed their steps, in spite of the contradiction to all their preconceived notions, and fondly cherished anticipations, they fall down and worship the ‘““when they opened their treasures, they presented their mystic gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” wondrous infant, and Aurea nascenti fuderunt munera Regi, Thura dedere Deo, Myrrham tribuere Sepulchro. The facts of this narrative, as recorded by St. Matthew, entirely contradict the popular notion, that these Hastern Potentates were present at Bethlehem on the twelfth day after the birth of the holy child. The events related by the Evangelist demand a far longer interval of time for their fulfilment. The difficult journey from the East to Jerusalem; the delay incurred by the inquiries at Herod’s court, by the meeting of the Sanhedrin, and by the judicial investigation of the sacred books; the subsequent interviews with Hered ; the completion of the journey to Nazareth after the departure from Jerusalem, must have occupied several weeks, or months. The language of St. Matthew too implies, that when these illustrious strangers reached the end of their pilgrim- age, they found the holy babe and his parents located in a permanent domicile “‘ when they came into the house” (Matt. 11. 2), not the inn of St. Lukeii. 7. It is, also, to be observed that the Presentation in the AT NAZARETH. 231 eee eee a Temple on the fortieth day after the birth must have preceded the visit of the Magi, and the decree of Herod; as, after that decree, no Bethlehemite infant could have been brought in safety to Jerusalem. The learned Dr. W. H. Mill maintains that the star did not precede the Magi from their own country to Jerusalem, as the way thither would be so well known, as to preclude the need of any Divine illumination. How much more forcibly does this argument apply to the shorter, better known, and more frequented road between the Jewish Capitol and Bethlehem. The Magi would want no preter- natural guide to direct them thither.* The fact is, that the star appeared to them on their departure from Jerusalem for the purpose of leading them away altogether from Bethlehem, and of directing their steps northward to Nazareth, ‘‘ where the young child was;’’ and, from whence they returned to their own country, without a second visit to Jerusalem. The small and humble offering of a pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons, would never have been made by so pious a Jewish Matron as the B. Virgin, if she had, previously to the presentation of her child in the Temple on the fortieth day after its birth, received these rich gifts from her kingly visitors. She would in that case have purchased a more costly offering. These * Cf. Bp. Wilson’s Works, ‘‘ Anglo-Catholic Theol.,” vol. vi., p. 381. 232 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE treasures, presented at a later period to the new- born child, provided for the flight into Egypt, and for the safe residence there. IV.—THE SECOND DIVINE APPEARANCE IN THE TEMPLE. The custom of the Feast.—The first attendance at the Passover. —The manifestation of signs and wonders.—The astonish- ment of the Jewish Doctors.—The reply to the B. Virgin- Mother.—Its significance.—The greatness of the claims. —The fulfilment of the prophecy of Haggai.—The glories of the first Temple.—The greater glory of the second Temple. It was the custom among the Jews, for Parents to take their children with them to the Feast of the Passover, at the age of twelve years. From this period Jewish youths were considered responsible for their actions, and amenable to all the threatenings and penalties awarded to transgressions of the Mosaic Law. The holy child Jesus, in conformity with this custom, accompanies his parents to Jerusalem to celebrate for the first time at the age prescribed by the Jewish law the great Feast of the Passover, and to take on himself the duties and responsibilities of the Jewish Church and Covenant. This Appearance of Jesus in the Temple is accom- panied, as at his Presentation, with a manifestation of IN THE TEMPLE. 233 signs and wonders, significant of his highest claims, as the Messenger of the Covenant, and as the fellow of Jehovah. What else is the meaning of this display of more than human wisdom,* which filled the learned Doctors of the Sanhedrin} with transports of astonishment, and of admiration at his under- standing and answers. What is his significant reply to his B. Virgin Mother, on her demanding the cause of his remaining behind at Jerusalem, “‘ Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” but an announcement of his loftiest claims, as the ‘son * The traditions of the Church imply the display of more than human wisdom by our Blessed Lord on this occasion. Ad ejus quoque divinitatem pertinet hoc evangelium. Vocat enim Deum patrem suum: et per etatem humano more tantum sapere non poterat, quantum legitur in hoc Evangelio (St. Luke ii. 41 to 47).—Antiq. Liturg. Arcana, Tom. i., p. 323. + It is supposed that the Court of the Sanhedrin was the scene of this incident. This Sanhedrin was composed of 71 members including its President and Vice-President. The members sat round in a circle, so that all might be in sight of the tribune of the two Presidents. In accordance with this arrange- ment our Lord was found, “ sitting in the midst of the Doctors.” The Sanhedrin met in the Courts of the Temple. See ‘‘ Harmony of the Four Gospels,” Dr. John Lightfoot’s Works, vol. iv., p. 240, Pitman’s edition. The same Divine says, ‘‘ It is probable that Hillel and Shamai, two of the most learned expounders of the Jewish law, were at this time, the ornaments and support of the great council of the nation, and were among those who were astonished, or in amazement, at the learning displayed by the youth before them.’’—Exercit. Talmudicce in locum. 234 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE of the Highest,’ and as the Lord in his Father’s House. This Appearance of our Lord in the Temple is a fulfilment of the prophecy of Haggai ii. 9: “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former.” The “former house” alluded to by the prophet is the first Temple of King Solomon, which alike in the external splendour of its buildings, and in its mystic furniture, was superior to the second Temple erected on the return of the two tribes from Babylon. ‘The Jewish Rabbis reckon five particu- lars inwhich the first Templeexceeded thesecond. It had: 1. The holy ark wherein were the tables of the Covenant, and where God was said to dwell between the Cherubims that covered it. 2. The Shekinah, or Divine presence, in the cloud of glory. 3. The miraculous Urim and Thummin. 4. The holy fire that came down from heaven. 5. The gift of pro- phecy, or of the Holy Ghost. But all these glories were surpassed under the second Temple. They were fulfilled and more divinely exhibited in the Archetype the Messiah, who was the true Shechinah, God not only appearing in, but personally anited to, our nature: Whose Holy Spirit descended mira- culously in fire upon his apostles, this same day (of Pentecost) wherein the law was given in fire from Mount Sinai; and filled them with the gifts of tongues, miracles, and prophecy, which were now departed from the temple; and placed that infallible Urim TO ¥OHN THE BAPTIST. 235 and Thummim, in their hearts, which was but faintly represented in the breast-plate of the High Priest.’”’* The glory of the second Temple was thus greater than of the first, when the Lord Jesus appeared within its courts, “‘made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 1. 7), yet the Lord (Jehovah) in his Father’s House. V.—THE FIRST DIVINE APPEARANCE TO JOHN HHESBAPTIST: The Privacy at Nazareth.—Its effects—The renewal of won- ders.—The Mission of John the Baptist.—The Baptism of the Lord Jesus.—Its accompanying wonders.—The Divine voice.—Its testimony to the identity of the Angel-Jehovah, with the Lord Jesus——The manifestation of the Holy Spirit.—The effects of these wonders on the multitude. THE interval of eighteen years subsequent to the second Appearance of our Blessed Lord in the Temple was passed in the strictest privacy of his humble home at Nazareth. This temporary with- drawal from public notice must, in some degree, have obliterated the impressions made upon the nation by the wonders attendant on his birth and childhood. When, however, our Blessed Lord was about thirty years old, the age at which the Jewish priests and prophets were wont to commence their * See Leshe’s ‘*Short Method with the Jews.” Section 3, sub fine. 236 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Be FES ARPS Oe = sacred ministrations, the attention of the nation was again concentered on his person by the wonders attendant on his Baptism in the waters of the Jordan.* John the Baptist, clad, like Elijah of old, in his raiment of camel’s hair, living apart from the pursuits of men, eating the plainest and coarsest food, had already discharged his office as the appointed forerunner,t by instituting the Baptism of Repent- ance, by urging on all ranks and classes an awakening to their duties, and by announcing the near approach of their expected Messias. ‘I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh * There is reason to believe that John was baptizing in the very place where the Israelites passed over: and that our Lord was baptized in that spot where the ark rested in the bed of the river.—Harmony of the Four Evangelists. Lightfoot’s Works, vol. iv., p. 805. t We often meet with passages in the Old Testament which speak plainly of the Most High God, applied as plainly in the New Testament to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Thus in Isaiah xl. 3 it is said that “the voice of crying in the wilder- ness shall prepare the way of Jehovah, and make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”? But in each one of the Fivangelists this passage is quoted, Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke ii, 4; John i. 23. The Voice is said to be John the Baptist : and He for whom he prepares the way is said to be Christ. Is not this the natural and necessary inference, that Christ is as much our God, and Jehovah: as John was the Voice in the wilderness?—Bp. Harold Browne’s Exposition of the Articles, p. 3d, LO FOHN THE BAPTIST. 237 after (or behind) me is mightier than I, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire (Matt. il. 11). While John Baptist was thus exhorting the multitude Jesus draws nigh, and demands to be baptized of him. The Baptist hesitates to comply with His request, asserting his greater need of baptism from Himself; but on our Blessed Lord urging His demand, “‘ Suffer it be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered Him.” “And Jesus when He was baptized* went straightway out of the water; and lo! the heavens were opened, unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God, descending upon Him, as a dove, and lighting upon Him; and, lo! a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ (Matt. iii. 15-17). What more solemn attestation to the identity of the Lord Jesus with the Angel-Jehovah of the two earlier Dispensations could have been afforded, than this Divine Manifestation at His Baptism in the Jordan? The Voice from heaven, which attested the Presence of the Angel-Jehovah to Adam, to Abraham, to Moses, to Joshua, to Hlijah, and to so many other Chieftains and Prophets, is heard * «He would be circumcised, to sanctify His Church that was ; and baptized to sanctify His Church that should be ; that so, in both testaments, He might open a way into heayen.’”’— Bp. Hall’s Contemplations, Book ii., § 2. 238 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE to declare ‘‘the man Christ Jesus,’ now standing in the stream of the Jordan, to be “the beloved Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased.” And yet further the Holy Spirit, who at the Creation moved upon the face of the waters, who strove before the Deluge with the men of Noah’s generation, who nerved the Deliverers of the Hebrew tribes to their deeds of enterprize, who ever spake by the prophets, is now visibly seen to hover over, and to illumine the head of the Lord Jesus, and to anoint Him to the discharge of His high office. What a wondrous effect must have been produced on those who were present at this portentous scene! How their hearts must have thrilled, within them, as they heard in articulate tones from heaven words, which were the very echo of their great Psalmist’s declaration, “ Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee” (Ps. xi. 10); the very renewal of the Angelic announcement “ He shall be called the Son of the Highest;”’ the very completest acceptance, by the Voice of the Divine Father of all that had been done by the Angel-Jehovah in virtue of his Mediatorial office, since the world began! Is it not possible that some at least among the Scribes and Pharisees present at that solemn scene, men learned in the Law and the Prophets, would confess that this Divine manifestation was a fulfilment of theannounce- ment of Hsaias. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord, Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek, he hath sent me IN THE WILDERNESS. 239 ee re ee ey to bind up the broken-hearted, 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 ” (Isaiah xli. 1, 2; Luke iv. 16, aly VI—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE IN THE WILDERNESS. The two great truths established in the preceding Books.—The additional truths established by the five antecedent sections.—The Revelation of a Second Adam.—His fit- ness to encounter, and to overcome, the Tempter.—His Temptation necessary as a trial of obedience.—The Correspondence of the Temptation of the First, and the Second Adam.—The different Results.—The ministration of Angels.—The homage of the wild beasts. —The identity of the Angel-Jehovah, with the Lord Jesus Christ. Tue three preceding Books have established the- fact, that from the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, to the sealing of the Old Testament Canon by Malachi, one Divine Mediator, bearing the Incom- municable Name, Jehovah the fellow of J ehovah, and yet distinct from Jehovah, has been entrusted with the Government of the Church, and with the su- preme superintendence of human affairs. Another concurrent truth has been established in the preced- ing portions of this Treatise ; viz. that this Divine Mediator, in his manifestations to those favoured 240 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE with his Presence, has been occasionally revealed in the visible likeness of a man. The preceding Sections of this Fourth Book have further set forth “ the mystery of the Holy Incarna- tion” of this Divine Mediator by a human birth, and have attested at the same time His retention of His Divine nature by all the wonders attendant on his Nativity, childhood, and youth. We are thus brought face to face with the “deep things of God,” and to a nearer consideration of the Divine purposes of mercy and lovingkindness towards our race. We are permitted in a word, to contemplate One, a verit- able Second Adam, a perfect partaker of man’s nature, without touch or trace of its imperfection, and so fitted to enter for a second time into conflict with the Prince of darkness, the Tempter of the First Adam to his act of disobedience, and trans- gression. The Lord Jesus Christ by the verity of of his human nature is fitted to enter into a personal conflict with the great adversary, the Tempter of man, the Prince of this world, and He is also enabled by his Divine power, as the Angel-Jehovah, the son of God, to oppose to his subtleties an effectual resistance. And as our Blessed Lord was qualified to: enter into this contest with Satan, so was it necessary that He should do so, if he would accom- plish the great work assigned to His high office. His own perfect obedience, and unsullied holiness (necessary prerequisites to the work of an effectual propitiation) could be proved in no other way than by IN THE WILDERNESS. 241 eee eee eercerres NGS AST His subjection to trial, and by His coming out unscathed from that trial. He could prove Himself the Conqueror of Satan, and the destined bruiser of the serpent’s head in no other way, than by showing Himself in His humanity stronger than the strong ; and by spoiling evil principalities and powers openly triumphing over them (Col. ii. 15). And for this purpose, that He might prove His perfect righteous- ness, and His power successfully to resist and over- come the arch-enemy of mankind, was He immedi- ately after His inauguration to His high office at His Baptism “led up by the Spirit of God, into the Wilderness to be Tempted of the Devil.” There arises from the very circumstances of the case a remarkable correspondence in the Temptation which was presented alike to our first Parents, and to the Lord Jesus Christ. There was indeed only one mode for the access of evil to either the First or the Second* Adam. Each was invested with a pure and holy nature : the one, as created of the Virgin earth, in the image of his Maker; the other, as “born (with a superhuman birth) of the Virgin Mary, and conceived by the Holy Ghost.” No * Adam enim de terra Virgine natus est: et Christus de Maria Virgine procreatus. Adam Dei manibus plasmatur e limo ; Christus Dei spirituformaturinutero. Uterque oritur Deo patre, uterque virgine utitur matre: uterque (sicut, Evange- lista dicit), filius Dei est : sed Adam creatura est Dei, Christus vero substantia. —S. Augustin. Opera. Ed. Bened. Antw. 1780. Tom. v., app. p. 183. 16 242 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE corrupt affection, no inborn evil, no original imper- fection could mar the beauty of inherent holiness, nor provide a successful* avenue to Temptation ; and therefore each, as the first Head of a new humanity, was assailed in a personal conflict, and was appealed to with personal enticements to transgression, by the Prince of darkness. The Evil Spirit did for the second time, (during this Temptation presented to our Lord in the Wilderness, ) assail an unfallen humanity, but not again to conquer. ‘‘Entrapped by the out- ward} garment of the flesh, he ventured upon him as Man, and found him to be God, and was himself beat down and conquered by the blow which he levelled.” * Some persons have found a difficulty in supposing that an exposure even to temptation is consistent with a state of sinlessness. It is clear that evil being presented to the mind does not necessarily cause sin. Adam might have hungered from the very condition of his mortal nature in the garden of Eden. If no fruit save that of the forbidden tree had been at hand to satisfy the cravings of that hunger, he might have been tempted to eat, yet if he had not yielded to that temptation, but had continued firm in his love to God, and in obedience to His law, Adam would in no point have sinned. Evil into the mind of God, or man, Can come and go, and leave no stain behind. —WMilton’s Paradise Lost. The author is indebted for these remarks to notes on the Gospels delivered by the late Archdn. Wilson Evans, in the Divinity Lecture Room, of Trinity College, Cambridge, { Cf. Faringdon’s Sermons, vol. i., p. 8, folio. LORFOHN SIH EABAPTIIST. 243 At the end of this “Temptation” the Evil Spirit departed from him for a season, and the Angels came with willing and adoring service, and minis- tered to the wants of their Incarnate Lord, while the wild beasts acknowledge their Creator, and lose in His presence their natural characteristics. This scene in the wilderness provides its quota of evidence to the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ with the Jehovah-Angel of the Covenant. The Jehovah-Angel is revealed as the self-existing God, and yet as occasionally manifested in the likeness ofaMan. But the Lord Jesus proved Himself to be a partaker of a human nature by his submission to Temptation, and also to be essentially possessed of Divine and omnipotent power by His triumph over the Prince of Darkness. Thus the manifesta- tion in each of a human and Divine personality, establishes the oneness of the Angel-Jehovah and of Jehovah-Jesus, the Son of God, who was “ manifested that he might destroy the works of the Devil ” (1 John iii. 8). VU.—THE SECOND DIVINE APPEARANCE TO JOHN THE BAPTIST. The renewed testimony of John the Baptist.—His announce- ment of the Lamb of God.—The astonishment of the Disciples.—An advance on all preceding Revelation.—The unique position of the Baptist.—His quick decrease. Our Blessed Lord at the conclusion of His personal 16 * 244 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE encounter with the Tempter returns to the district of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The Baptist on seeing Him immediately spake of Him to his disciples. He declares, that although acquainted with Him from His infancy, and connected with Him by ties of consanguinity, yet he hitherto knew Him not as appointed to His High office, until it was revealed to him by a Divine communication, that He, on whom he should see the Spirit of God descend, was He ‘“‘ who would come after him, and baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire”; and then the Baptist, with the most distinct and plenary language, announces Him to the assembled crowds, as “the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” The declaration of the Baptist is so familiar to us, as forming a part of our offices of Litany and of Holy Communion, and is so dovetailed and engrained in our most frequent and habitual thoughts, that we fail to realize the overwhelming awe and astonish- ment which must have been created in the minds of those to whom the words were first addressed. John Baptist’s disciples, as Jews, were taught that ‘ with- out the shedding of blood there was no Remission.” They were acquainted with the saying of the great Father of their nation, “‘ My Son, God will provide Himself a Lamb for a burnt-offering.” They knew the famous prophecy of Esaias, in which he speaks in mysterious language of a Holy victim, “who bare the sins of many, and was led as a Lamb to the LOVFOUN? THES BAPTIST; 245 slaughter’: they also kept the solemn Feast of the Passover by the annual sacrifice of a Lamb without spot or blemish; and how must they have been amazed to hear the declaration of their Master, that “the very Lamb of God appointed to bear away the sins of the world” was standing among them; that One was actually present, whose prerogative it would be to make a perfect oblation, sacrifice and satis- faction for human sin. This announcement made by John the Baptist to his disciples was a wondrous advance on all preceding Revelation. It declared the whole counsel of God. It concentred into a few brief words the testimony of Prophets, the expecta- tion of ages, the complicated system of the Mosaic institutions. Verily, John the Baptist held an unique position in the development of the Divine plans! Without his marvellous intervention, there would have been a diminution of the perspicuity now apparent in the Divine arrangements. As he pointed out Jesus as “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world,” he pronounced the death-doom of the Mosaic Dispensation, the abrogation of the Levitical insti- tutions, the cessation of animal sacrifices. In thus setting forth Jesus, the Son of God, the Angel of the old Covenant, as the true Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, John Baptist reached the climax of his appointed mission. No further testimony could be given. His task was accomplished. His work was done. From that very declaration to 246 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE his disciples, according to his own predictions of _ himself, he began to decrease. Within a brief period, he met with imprisonment for his bold rebuke of Herod, and with an early martyrdom. His last crowning testimony was notin vain. It brought to the ministry of the Lord Jesus, His two first disciples, who thus continued to attest before their countrymen the truth of the confession of the Baptist, that Jesus was “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” VUI.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE IN JUDEA AND GALILEE. The Human Appearance of our Lord.—Its graciousness.—His public Ministry.—His Conversations.—His claim to be the Angel of the Covenant.—His Mission from the Father.— Its perpetual enforeement.—The testimony of the Jewish Scriptures to His identity with the Angel of the Covenant. —His oneness and equality with the Father.—The anger of the Jews provoked by this claim.—His Divine Pre- existence.—The similar Divine characteristics of the Angel of the Covenant and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Tue narratives of the four Evangelists supply no information as to the personal Appearance of their Divine Master during the period of His human ministry. Although in His intense sufferings His form might have been more marred than any man, yet might He in His ordinary aspect have been IN {UDA AND GALILEE. 247 fairer than the children of men. There are many indications of His having won the favourable regard of those, with whom He came in contact. His auditors wondered at the gracious words which pro- ceeded out of His mouth, and declared that never man spake like this man. He secured to Himself the unbought voices and unbiassed affections of the children. The women welcomed Him, and said, ‘*‘ Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that thou hast sucked ;” and gave Him to the last their faithful ministrations. The poor sufferers healed of their diseases sought to stay with Him. Mary Magdalene washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. It is con- sistent with these facts to suppose that the Human* Appearance of our Lord was marked by an exceeding graciousness, both in person, and in actions. Our Blessed Lord for the space of three years and a half exhibits his Divine power throughout the cities and villages of Judea and Galilee, and addresses Himself, as opportunity allows, to the crowds that accompanied Him. The great purpose of His conversations seems to have been the im- pressing His countrymen with His claim to be the Angel-Jehovah, the divinely appointed Guardian * He had ever “in vultu sidereum quiddam,” as Jerome speaks, a certain heavenly majesty and port in His coun- tenance, which made His disciples follow Him at first sight.— Bishop Hall’s Contemplations, iv., B. 1-3. 248 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ee es 2 eee and Ruler of their ancestral Covenant. The special characteristic of this Divine but delegated Mes- senger was this, that He was sent by Jehovah according to the Divine assurance given to their great Lawgiver* at Sinai (Hxod. xxiii. 20). The conversations of our Blessed Lord abound with declarations of His having been sent by the Eather, and thus set forth the identity of Himself in this point with the Guardian Angel of their Covenant. ‘Tam come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another should come in his own Name, him ye will receive” (John y. 43). “The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of Me” (John x. 25). So again (John vii. 28): “Then cried Jesus in the Temple as He taught, ye both know Me, and ye know whence I am, and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not, but I know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me.” On sending forth His apostles He told them, “he that receiveth you, receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me” (Matt. x. 40). In answer to the prayer of the Syrophcenician mother, He declares, “Tam not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. xv. 24). At the grave of Lazarus, Jesus thanked God that He had heard His prayer: “I knew that thou hearest Me always, but because ee CUdDLUD * See Book ii. § 2, p. 95. IN {UDA AND GALILEE. 249 ee ee ree Te eS of the people that stood by I said it, that they might believe that thou hast sent Me” (John xi. 42). It seems indeed to have been the delight of the only beloved Son of the Father, to declare himself to have been sent by the Father. “ Say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemist, because I said, I am the Son of God” (John x. 36). The works that my Father hath given Me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of Me, that my Lather hath sent Me: and the Father himself which hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, or seen his shape, and ye have not his word abiding in you, for whom he hath sent, Him ye believe not. Search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of Me (John v. 56-38). What a significance does this last-quoted declaration impart to all the antecedent Divine Government of the Church! The Jewish Scriptures do indeed testify of the Guardian presence of the Angel- Jehovah: and yet our Lord asserts that they testify of Him. Can these numerous affirmations of His being “the sent one” of the Father, and this claim of finishing the works given Him to do, admit of any other interpretation, than His identity with the Angel of Jehovah, “sent from the Father, yet Himself co-eternal and co-equal with the Father.” The Lord Jesus, however, not only enforced con- tinually His claim for acceptance as having been 250 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE “sent by the Father,” but He asserts for Himself a Oneness, and an Hquality with the Father. What else means the declaration : “‘I and My Father are One” (John x. 30)? Why did the Jews take up stones to cast at Him, unless they understood the words as implying for Himself an identity with the Father ? So, again, on our. Lord’s healing the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, on the Sabbath day, “‘ The Jews sought to slay Him because He had done these things on the Sabbath day. But Jesus answered them, My Father hitherto worketh, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Hin, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: for whatsoever things He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honour the Son, even as men honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent Him” (John v. 14-25). And again (John viii. 29), “The Father hath not left Me alone, for I do always those things that please Him.” This Oneness and Equality with the Divine Father IN FUDZZA AND GALILEE. 251 nee asserted of Himself. by our Lord necessarily implied His Divine Pre-existence. ‘ Your Father Abraham* rejoiced to see My day; he saw it and was glad ” (John viii. 56-8). ‘Then said the Jews to Him, Thou art not fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.” These words imply not only that the speaker existed before Abraham, but that He was the same self-existent Being, who in their own Covenant was revealed by the awful name “Iam.” The Jews who heard the words gave to them this interpretation. They took up stonest to cast at Him for His blasphemy, in ee Cibook 1.,.8 5,,p.51. 7 It is interesting to mark in the fifth to the eleventh chapters of St. John’s Gospel, the gradations which attend our Blessed Lord’s revelation of Himself, and to see also -the gradually increasing exacerbation of the Jews. The violence of His adversaries seems to have increased pari passu with the in- creasing distinctness of His claims. In John v. 18, He simply asserts that ‘‘God was His Father.” The Jews sought the more to kill Him, apparently after some formal process. In John viii. 59, He implied His Divine pre-existence as the great ‘‘T am,” the Divine Title most dear to the Jews ; and on hear- ing it, the Jews “ took up stones to cast at Him.” In John x. 30, on His plainly declaring His fullest claim, “I and My Father are one,” the “Jews took up stones again to stone Him”’; the last expression probably marking a more determined attempt to inflict the punishment on the spot. See an admir- ably written brochure by the Rey. Geo. Renaud: “How did Christ rank the proofs of His Mission?” p. 45. Hatchards, 1872. 252 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE claiming for Himself the Name and prerogatives of the Lord Jehovah. On another occasion our Lord makes a similar claim to a Divine Pre-existence with the Father. ‘These words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Thy Son. .... And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thy own self, with the glory that I had with Thee before the world was” (John xvii. 5). Again, ‘‘The Son of Man shall ascend into heaven: for no man ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven.” But, these attributes of a Mission from the Father, of an Oneness, Equality, and Pre- existence with the Father, and of a participation of a heavenly antecedent glory with the Father, are the essential characteristics of the Angel-Jehovah of the Jewish Covenant. In our Blessed Lord asserting for Himself these very same attributes, is there not to be found strong and indisputable testimony to the identity of the Jesus-Jehovah, with the Angel-Jehovah of the antecedent Dispensation P IX.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ON THE HOLY MOUNT. The precise period of the Transfiguration.—The preceding circumstances.—The Confession of St. Peter.— The erroneous expectations of the disciples—Their confirma- tion by our Lord’s miracles.—The kingdom of Christ explained.—Its sufferings.—Its glory.— The Divine Appear- ance on the Holy Mount.—The narratives of the Evan- ON THE HOLY MOUNT. 253 a rr a gelists.—The testimony of St. John, and St. Peter.—‘‘ The excellent Glory.”—The fear of the Apostles—The con- summating evidence to the identity of the Lord Jesus with the Angel-Jehovah.—The Transfiguration a possible fore- shadowing of a more solemn revelation of the Divine Glory. THE consideration of the precise period in our Lord’s ministry, at which this marvellous scene occurred, will elucidate its purport and significance. It took place on the eve of His final sufferings at Jeru- salem. The miracles and conversations of our Lord had by this time so convinced His disciples of the reality of His Divine mission, as the Messias promised to their fathers, that in answer to His question, ‘“Whom say ye that Iam?” Peter in his own name, and on behalf of his fellow-disciples, could reply, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. xvi. 16). The disciples, however, in the face of this true confession, entertained very imperfect and erroneous notions of the Messias’s kingdom. They believed that He would prove Himself to be a Temporal Conqueror, who would emancipate their nation from the Roman yoke, and restore the kingly dominion of David, and of Solomon. The two latest exhibitions of the Divine power of their Master might have encouraged these ambitious expectations. He had just fed four thousand persons from seven loaves, and a few fishes (Matt. xv. 32), and had healed in large numbers, those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others (Matt. xv. 30). He thus 254 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE. plainly showed, that, if He would stir up His countrymen to rebellion, and enter on the career of a temporal conqueror, the victualling of His army, and the care of His wounded would be no impedi- ments to His success. It was at this very moment, when the disciples confessed Him to be “ the Christ the Son of the Living God,” and yet entertained hopes of His establishing a temporal kingdom, that the Lord Jesus began to correct their mistaken sentiments, and to tell them fearful things about Himself: “That He must go to Jerusalem, and, suffer many things of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and raised again the third day” (Matt. xvi. 21). The astonishment of the Apostles on hearing these tidings was very great. They could not bear the thought, that He whom they had seen perform such wondrous works, and exercise such great power, should become the object of scorn and persecution. St. Peter expresses the universal indignation: ‘‘ Be it far from Thee Lord: this shall not surely happen unto Thee ” (Matt, xvi. 22). In this position of the Apostles our Blessed Lord explained the true nature of His kingdom, and told them that “the Son of Man,” in despite of His. antecedent humiliation, should come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and then He shall reward every man according to His works. “ Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Matt. xvi. 27, 28). Shortly after this Conversation, the Lord Jesus ON THE HOLY MOUNT. 255 (ot ae ag a cS, ae taketh Peter, James, and J ohn, and bringeth them up with Him into a high mountain apart, and was Transfigured before them. Three out of the four Evangelists give an account of the wondrous scene, St. Luke says (ix. 29): “And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistering.” St. Mark writes: “He was transfigured before them, and His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, So as no fuller on earth could whiten it” Gxt 20)IRESE. Matthew in briefer words relates “He was trans- figured before them, and His face* did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light” (xvii. 3). * St. Mark seems to imply that our Blessed Lord on His descent from the mountain retained for a season the bright effulgence of glory which had been revealed in Him. His first act was to cure the lunatic youth whose father had appealed in vain to His disciples during His three days’ absence from them: ‘And straightway all the people when they beheld Him were greatly amazed, and running to Him saluted Him ” (Mark xi. 1). The late Archbishop Trench remarks on this Miracle; ‘* When the multitude saw the Lawgiver of the elder Covenant, as He came down from His mountain, the skin of His face shining, they were afraid to come nigh Him (Exod. Xxxiv. 30), for that glory upon His face was a threatening glory, the awful and intolerable brightness of the law. But the glory of God shining in the face of Christ Jesus, though awful too, is also an attractive glory, full of grace, and beauty. It draws men to Him, and does not drive them from Him ; and thus, indeed, all the people, when they beheld Him, were greatly amazed, such gleams of brightness arrayed Him still; 256 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE wont okt a eS ee ee The Evangelist St. John asserts in reference to this event, “‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, as of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1. 14). He thus attributes to the Lord Jesus Christ, the very same participation in the glory of the Eternal Father, which is so continually revealed in the Old Testament, as the Divine prerogative of the Angel of the Lord. St. Peter also declares in remembrance of this wondrous mani- festation : ‘We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye- witnesses of His Majesty. For He received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a Voice to Him from the excellent glory: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased : and this Voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the Holy Mount” (second Epistle of St. Peter i. 16-18). The expression of St. Peter “ the excellent glory,” is equivalent to the phrase “the glory of the Lord: and he thus applies to our Lord Jesus Christ the very same description, which in the Old Testament is so frequently ascribed to the Presence of the Divine Angel of the Covenant. The three chosen witnesses of the scene exhibit, moreover, the same sense of overwhelming fear which always oppressed the spec- anne eel ts Pee Oe ai ee yet they did not, therefore, flee from Him, but rather as the more allured by that brightness, running to Him, saluting.— Trench on Miracles, p. 370. ONG THEY HOLY MOUNT. 257 a tators of the Divine Presence. “ They fell on their face, and were sore afraid” (Matt.. xvii. 6). Thus this wondrous scene at the Mount of Trans- figuration affords the consummating evidence to the oneness of the Personality of the Angel-Jehovah, and of our Lord Jesus Christ. It surrounds our Blessed Lord, while manifested in the human nature, with the same Divine glory with which the Jehovah- Angel of the Covenant was invested, when Moses ‘was permitted from the clift of the rock, and the shelter of the Divine hand, to see the passing* of the Divine goodness, and which at a later period was witnessed by the two great prophets of the Old Testa- ment, Hsaias, and Ezekiel (Isa. vi. 1-6; Hzek. 1. 26 to end). It reveals the great Head of the Christian Church, as arrayed, even during the period of His Incarnation, in that Divine light, splendour, and majesty which were under the earliex Dispensation, the very attributes, prerogatives, and indications of the Angel-Jehovah. This solemn scene on the Holy Mount, may possibly be the anticipation of a still more august, and more awful manifestation of the glorified Humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. “The disciples” (says St. Luke ix. 32, when speaking of His Transfiguration) “saw His glory.” St. Matthew (xxiv. 38) writes “Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, when they see the Son of Man coming in His glory.” We may infer from the use of the ee eee eee ee ees ed tN ee * See Book ii., § 2, p. 100. 17 258 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE same expression “ His glory’ in the two descriptions, that the glory of our Lord in His Transfiguration may be a foreshadowing of His glorious Appearance to judge, both those who like Moses have seen death, or those who like Elijah shall have been changed, with- out a submission to the universal penalty. X.—THE LAST DIVINE APPEARANCE IN THE TEMPLE. The stately approach to Jerusalem.—Its significance.—The rejoicing of the multitude.—The probable causes of the popular enthusiasm.—The fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah.— The sacred Hosannas.— The pause of the procession.—The tears over the holy City—The series of wonders in the Temple.—The healings——The expulsion of the money-changers.—The claim to be the Lord of the Temple.—The right to receive the Hosannas of the children. —The testimony of the Voice from Heaven.—The fulfilment of the prophecy of Malachi. THe ‘glory’ of the Holy Mount was soon over- shadowed by the sad sufferings of Calvary. On the tenth day of the month, being the fifth day before the Passover, the very same day on which the annual Paschal Lamb was taken up to the courts of the Tem- ple, (so exact in all points was the Type to the Anti- type) the Lord Jesus of His own accord journeys to Jerusalem. ‘‘ Never,’ (writes Bishop Hall) “did our Saviour take so much state on Him, as now that He IN THE TEMPLE. 259 ee was going towards His passion: other journeys He measured on foot, without noise or train, this with a princely equipage, and loud acclamation. Now He passes in state through their streets, acclaimed both as a King and Prophet.” How greatly indeed must the customary routine procession* of Priests and populace which accompanied the taking up the annual expiatory sacrifice into the holy City, have been on this occasion eclipsed and surpassed by the vast and enthusiastic multitudes which accompanied the true “Lamb of God,” as He goes upa willing victim to the house of His immolation ! It is supposed by some interpreters of the holy Scriptures, that on this progress from Bethany, the disciples and the multitudes were suddenly inspired by a Divine efflatus to chaunt in the honour of our Lord their praises and Hosannas. There are, however, sufficient motives to account for this universal and intense outburst of popular enthusiasm. The people had been’so greatly stirred by the miracle of feeding the “ five thousand” that they had sought to take Him by force, and to make Him a King (John vi. 15). They had more recently been moved to wonder and oot wt SRST CSS Sneed alae ce ae a eae * It must not be omitted to observe, how the ‘Lamb of God” the true paschal, by whose blood is everlasting deliverance, did answer this figure of the Lamb’s being taken up on the tenth day: when, on that very day, he rode upon an ass into J erusalem, and offered himself to be taken up for that sacrifice, which within six days after he was made for sin, and offered up.—Dr. John Lightfoot’s Works, vol. ix., p. 182. 7 Xe 260 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE admiration by the calling forth of Lazarus from the grave, ‘‘and for this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle ”’ (John xii. 17,18). There must have been, moreover, in that vast crowd, gathered from all parts of Judea and Galilee for the approaching Passover, a sufficiently large number of the formerly lame, blind, maimed, palsied, diseased, and demonized, persons, who had received at the hands of the Lord Jesus the gifts of renewed health and strength, amply to account for this outpouring of adoring gratitude to their Benefactor. Whatever were the immediate causes of this transcen- dant reception, it fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah : *‘ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh to thee, he is just, and having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon acolt the foal of an ass”’ (Zech. ix.9). The disciples and the exultant multitudes took off on this occasion the long upper robes worn in Eastern countries, and strawed them in the way, thereby rendering their homage as toa King. Carry- ing palm branches, the emblems of .conquest, in their hands, they welcome our Lord to the Holy City as the Son of David, the illustrious founder of their kingdom, and at the same time they lifted up their voices (one multitude replying to the other in responsive strains) and chaunted forth in His praise the sacred Hosannas* * Psalm exvill. 25, ‘‘ Save now, I beseech thee, O Jehovah,” sung at the Feast of Tabernacles, provided the Hosannas of the LNG Eber PIE: 261 which were prohibited to Jewish lips save when addressed to the Lord-Jehovah. We pray thee, O Jehovah, save us we pray. We pray thee, O Jehovah, save us we pray. The great procession pauses for a brief moment on its way; for it was upon this occasion, amidst the Hosannas and rejoicings of the multitude, that Jesus on coming within sight of the city, and calling to mind the sufferings within a few years to be endured by its inhabitants for their rejection of Himself, wept over it. ‘If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes: for the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another ; because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation” (Luke xix. 41, 44). On his arrival at the courts of the Temple, the Lord Jesus vindicates by a series of wonderful words and mighty acts His claim to be the very Lord of _the Temple, the very fellow of Jehovah, the Son of the Everlasting Father. He manifests His Divine multitude, and of the children.—Cf. Townsend’s Chronological Arrangement of the New Testament, vol. i., p, 327. Also an excellent note on the word Hosanna, as referring to this event, in Calmet’s Dictionary. 262 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE eee Senne BABE ee power by healing the blind and lame who were congregated (probably to ask for the alms of the worshippers) in the outer courts of the building ; and by a miraculous display of superhuman authority drives out “‘all that sold or bought within the sacred precincts, and overthrew the tables of the money- changers, and would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the Temple’? (Mark xi. 15,16). In the next place He asserts, in language which the priests and the people would understand, His claim to be Himself the very Jehovah, worshipped in the Temple. He applies to Himself the words of the prophet Hsaias, “‘ My House shall be called of all nations the house of prayer” (Isa. lvi. 7); and lastly, He claims for Himself that Hquality and Oneness with the Divine Father, which in the old Covenant were ever associated with the Angel-Jehovah, by vindicating His right to accept those praises and Hosannas which were exclusively addressed by Jewish lips to the Lord Jehovah. The Pharisees, in the procession of the rejoicing multitudes, had already remonstrated against these words of sacred invocation being addressed to a human teacher, approaching in humble guise to Jerusalem. “Master, rebuke thy disciples” (Luke xix. OD)s They were still more greatly displeased on hearing within the very courts of the Temple the same holy words from the children, as they lifted their young voices in joyous greetings, “ Hosanna to the Son of David ” : and they demanded with vehement indig- IN THE TEMPLE. 263 nation, “Hearest Thou what these say?” when _Jesus to their surprise and anger justifies the appli- cation of the words to Himself, “‘ Yea, have ye never read, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise” (Matt. xxi.16; Psalm viii. 2), and thus again implies His claim, as the very Jehovah, the Lord of the Temple, to rightfully receive within its courts, these ascriptions of Divine praises, and of holy supplication. There is yet other testimony afforded on this occasion to the claim of the Lord Jesus to be the Lord in his Father’s house. Certain Greeks, Gentile proselytes of the gate, strangers at Jerusalem, coming for the Passover, request the Apostles Philip and Andrew to obtain for them an interview with their Divine Master. Instead of complying with the request of the two Apostles, Jesus tells them “‘ that the hour is come when the Son of man shall be glorified”; and then an evidence of the truth of His highest claims, better even than an interview with Himself, is afforded to these stranger visitors, in their hearing (in answer to the prayer of our Lord unto the Father, “ Glorify thy Name”) a voice* from heaven, ‘“T have glorified it, and will glorify it again” * Christ was thrice attested by a voice from heaven ; at his Baptism as the great High Priest; at his Transfiguration as the great Prophet, at his last entry into Jerusalem as the great King.—Lightfoot. 264 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE a ee ee eee (John xii. 13). Thus, in this final Appearance in the Temple, the Lord Jesus (by his miracles of healing, by his authoritative expulsion of the money- changers, by claiming the Temple as his own House, by asserting for Himself a right to receive the Hosannas, the Lord save us, of His people, and finally by the witness of a Voice from Heaven, that the Divine Father would in His person glorify His own Name), demonstrated Himself to be the Lord of the Temple, his Father’s house; the very fellow of Jehovah; the Divine Angel of the Covenant, fore-announced by the prophet Malachi. “The Jehovah, whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in. Behold He shall come saith the Lord of Hosts” (Mal. iii. 1). XI.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ON THE MOUNT OF CALVARY, ‘* Behold the Man.”—The transcendant Sacrifice.—Its neces- Sary requirement of the union of two natures in one Person.—Its complement to the earlier manifestations of the Angel of the Covenant.—The indications of Divine power amidst the humiliation of our Lord.—The falling to the ground of the Temple-Guard.—The restoration of the ear of Malchus. The right to summon legions of Angels.—The exercise of a future judgment.—The last appeal to the Sanhedrin.—The claim to a kingdom.—The judicial sentences on Caiaphas and Pilate——The Divine assurance to the penitent Malefactor.—The signs of a ON THE MOUNT OF CALVARY. 265 sympathizing Creation.—The identity of the Lord Jesus and the Angel-Jehovah. “ Behold the man.” Behold the one only man who was a partaker of a human birth without human imperfection; a man, whom the winds and _ sea obey, and whom the good Angels and evil spirits alike acknowledge as their Lord; a man, by whose touch the ravages of disease are stayed, and by whose word the dead are made to live. ‘ Behold the Man,” who alone of men during his earthly life claimed a Oneness and Equality with the Divine Father; a pre-existence with Him in glory before the world was; a supreme right to be the universal judge of all mankind. Behold the transcendant sacri- fice. Jesus-Jehovah, “perfect man,” by his wondrous Incarnation and unsinning obedience free from all imperfection, was enabled to pour out His soul unto death, in expiation of human sin, and to suffer the “just for the unjust.” “ Jesus-Jehovah,” ‘perfect: God,” imparted such an infinite value* to His suf- ferings and death, as to provide thereby a perfect propitiation. All the prior Human and Divine manifestations of the Angel Messenger of the old Covenant meet their full, designed, and complete accomplishment in the Lord and Saviour of the New Testament, who, by the uniont in Himself of the Divine and human Nature, made upon the cross * Cf. Archbishop Anselm’s ‘‘Cur Deus Homo,’’ Book ii., CL te + Cf. the Athanasian Creed. 266 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE by his one oblation of Himself, once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satis- faction for the sins of the whole world. The words and actions too of our Blessed Lord during these last hours of extremest humiliation attest His highest claims as the very Angel-Jehovah, the Divine Messenger, of the Jewish Dispensation. What other meaning has that group of miracles immediately attendant on His betrayal and capture by the Brook Cedron? Why did the “band of men and officers” who accompanied the traitor Judas draw backward and fall to the ground (John xviii. 6), ° except it were from the sudden display of some Divine Majesty, or some effulgence of His glory? The incident shows the voluntariness of our Blessed Lord’s surrender of Himself, and the entire power He had over His captors, if He had chosen to exert it. What, again, at this sad moment of His deliverance into the hands of wicked men, is this instantaneous restoration of the ear of Malchus, but an exhibition of His attribute of Omnipotence? “Suffer ye thus far.’ Suffer these my bonds to be unloosed so far as to allow me freedom to touch the wounded ear. ‘And he touched his ear and healed him” (Luke xxi. 51). And still more clear is the assertion, on this threshold of His sufferings, of His claim to be the very Angel-Jehovah of the Covenant, the very Lord of Hosts, when He combines His command to Peter, “Put up thy sword into his place,” with the question, “'Thinkest thou that I cannot now (in this ON THE MOUNT OF CALVARY. 267 (ce sega SS A ec my low estate), pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of Angels; but how then shall the Scriptures be ful- filled that thus it must be? (Matt. xxvi. 51-5.) These words would convey intenser significance to the Jewish priests and elders than to ourselves. They would imply the claim of the Speaker to be Himself the Lord of the Covenant established with the nation at Sinai, according to the saying of the Psalmist, “‘ The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of Angels. The Lord is among them as in Sinai, in the holy place” (Ps. Ixviii. 17). The Temple-Guard lead their majestic prisoner to the palace of Caiaphas, ‘‘who was High priest that Same year.’ Here, arraigned before the hastily summoned Court of the Sanhedrin, the chief Eccle- siastical Council of the Jews, the Lord Jesus sets forth, in the directest language, His claim to be the - very Jehovah, the Guardian Deity of the Abrahamic Covenant. Asa Jew He was bound to answer the appeal of Caiaphas, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us (the assembled spiritual Fathers of the Jewish Church) whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt. xxvi. 63), and He replies to the solemn adjuration, “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man* sitting on the right hand of power, * This was the last occasion on which our Blessed Lord applied to himself the title, ‘Son of Man.”—Cf. Book iii., § 5. 268 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE and coming in the clouds of Heaven.” The word “hereafter,” says Bishop Walsham How, literally means “henceforth,” or “from this time,” so that our Lord’s words can hardly be spoken only of His second coming at the Last Day. They seem to imply that from the very time of His condemnation and death, His. power and glory would begin to manifest themselves. They may perhaps be un- folded thus: ‘Although thou now sittest on thy throne of power and judgest Me, yet after this shalt thou see Me, sitting upon my throne of power, for thou shalt see My kingdom set up in the world, and at last, thou shalt see Me coming in the clouds of Heaven as Judge of all the world.” At all events the High Priest understood the claim implied in the application of this prophecy of Daniel to himself, and rent his clothes, which he was only permitted to do on hearing words of blasphemy. Our Blessed Lord had now fulfilled his course, and as its last final act, had asserted for himself before the recognized Heclesiastical Council of his people, his claim to be the Son of Man, spoken of by Daniel the prophet as invested with the glory of Jehovah, the very manifested Angel of their divinely given Covenant. The Lord Jesus is henceforth delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, and He adapts his words and bearing to His new position. He makes no sign before the hybrid Ruler of Galilee, and neither acknowledges, nor repudiates his jurisdiction. Before the tribunal of Pilate, the legitimate Governor ON THE MOUNT OF CALVARY. 269 sot sein glace eee eee 5 et oa ll A of Juda, He maintains His claim to a Supremacy and dominion more extensive than that swayed by the Imperial Majesty of Rome. In answer to the question of Pilate put to him during His first arraignment at his judgment-seat, “Art thou a King then? Art thou, so derided and rejected a prisoner, Thou, such an object of scorn, art thou a King ?” Jesus answered, ‘Thou sayest (right) that I am a King ; to this end was I born, and for this end came I into the world;”’ and explains that “his Kingdom was not of this world, or else would his servants fight” (John xviii. 33). And on his second return to the Roman Governor, in reply to his urgent question (evoked by his continued silence amidst all the accusations made against him), “ Knowest thou not I have power to crucify thee, or power torelease thee” (John xix.11), Jesus answered, “Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above,* therefore he that delivereth me to thee hath the greater sin, and from that time forth Pilate sought to release him.” Is there not here in our blessed Lord’s two-fold declaration that He was the possessor of a Kingdom, and that the Roman Governor had no authority over Him beyond that permitted him of God a testimony to His more than human claims? Is it not evident from the narratives of the Evangelists that Pilate was himself overawed, and impressed with the majesty of * This is by some commentators supposed to refer to the Court of the Sanhedrin. 270 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ee the sufferer before him? Does not our Lord, while a prisoner before the Gentile tribunal, exercise the functions of the “ Judge of all the earth,” attributing to Caiaphas who had delivered Him up the greater fault,and awarding to Pilate, who against his own con- science and convictions had declared sentence against Him, a lesser, but a well-merited condemnation ? The scene hastens to its awful close. The holy victim is hurried by the soldiers, and the rabble to the Mount of Calvary, and yet when fastened to the cross our Blessed Lord exhibits a proof of His being the Lord of life. When one of his fellow-sufferers, penetrating by faith the greatness of His Divine person, beseeches Him, amidst the universal repro- bation, in most moving accents, “ Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom,” He put forth in this hour of extremest humiliation, the assertion of His authority as the very fellow of Jehovah, as holding in his hands the keys of Hades and Death (Rev. i. 18), and comforted the soul of his fellow-sufferer, with the gracious assurance, “ Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shall thou be with me in Paradise” (Luke xxiii. 438), There is one other testimony to the Divine person- ality of the holy sufferer. Creation itself shows a sympathy with the sufferings of its Lord. From the sixth to the ninth hour the heavens were robed in sackcloth, the sun was darkened, the earth did quake, the rocks were rent, and the graves were opened (Luke xxiii. 44; Matt. xxvii. 51). May we ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 274 a a not in the face of these wondrous works and words (in the Divine effulgence which awed his captors; in the healing of the ear of Malchus; in the claim to have at His command twelve legions of Angels; in the assertion before the Sanhedrin of His coming as the Son of man in the clouds of heaven, in the declaration before Pilate, that He was the possessor of a kingdom, in the authoritative promise to the penitent Malefactor of a certain admission to the rest of Paradise, in the sympathy of the darkened sun,and quaking earth), make our own the confession that Jesus is at once “the Son of God,” “the mani- fested Jehovah of the ancient Dispensations”’ ? XIJ.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. Submission unto death the appointed path to conquest.—The transcendant Compensation.—The Appearances of Christ after the Resurrection.—His universal recognition.—The new manner of His Presence.—The continuity of the mode of teaching.—His explanation of the Scriptures.— His Mission from the Father.—His continuance of Mira- cles.—His bestowal of the Holy Ghost.—The adoration of St. Thomas.—The claim to universal power.—The Bap- tizing in the Triune Name.—The Visible Ascension from the Mount of Olives.—Its testimony to the identity of our Lord Jesus Christ with the Angel-Jehovah.—Its fitness, as the rightful termination of our Lord’s Ministry. THE dreadful scene at Calvar , the submission unto 272 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE death, was the only access to the very throne and - seat of Satan; and He who united in Himself the Human and the Divine nature, who was at once the Lord Jesus Christ and the great Angel of the Cove- nant, the very fellow of Jehovah, tasted the pains of death, that He might thereby, in the very citadel of Satan, wrest the sceptre from his hand, “and through death conquer him that had the power of death.” The transcendant Sacrifice secured a transcendant ~ Compensation; the removal of the vail cast over all nations; the triumphant Resurrection from the grave; the possession, as the First-born from the dead, of all authority in heaven and in earth; the visible departure, in the presence of His disciples, from the Mount of Olives in a Glorified Manhood into the heavens; the bestowal of Divine gifts; the establishment of a Society in the earth* in perpetual witness of Himself; and the exaltation of the name of Jesus, the name of the humiliation, so that to 7 every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is (Lord) Jehovah, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. ii. 10). “The Lord Jesus shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs” (Acts i. 3). On the very day in which He arose from the dead He appeared to Mary Magdalene, to St. Peter, to the two disciples journeying to Emmaus, and to the ten apostles assembled in the “upper room” at Jeru- * See Appendix A. ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 273 ne ee salem. On the following Lord’s Day He was again manifested to the Apostles, Thomas being one of their number. He appeared to seven disciples at the lake of Gennesareth. Afterwards He wag seen of James, and of five hundred Brethren on the mountain in Galilee. He is known by all. They recognize His voice. They see the wounded side and pierced hands. They are invited to touch, handle, and ex- amine the resuscitated and restored frame ; and they bear their testimony that their Divine Master was - again among them, invested with a body bearing the very image, lineaments, and Superscription of its former self. The manner of the Appearance of our Blessed Lord to His disciples, and the method of His intercourse with them after His resurrection from the dead, is very different from that with which they were previ- ously favoured. Their approach to Him in familiar and intimate discourse is no longer permitted. He is no longer the wayworn pugrim, buffeted with many a rude assault, the man of grief and sorrows. All traces of suffering (except such as He might appeal to as the testimonials of the resumption of His suffering body, and as trophies of His perfect victory over the power of Death) are passed away. He neither hungers any more, nor thirsts any more, but partakes of food, not for the satisfaction of His need, but as an assurance to His disciples that it was a real body in which He appeared to them. His movements and demeanour are no longer those of a 18 274 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE child of man. He appears, though His coming is not seen. ‘‘He is present; no one knows from whence He passes away, no one knows whither’’ (Westcott’s ‘Risen Lord,” p. 8). Heseems to disown this earth as His domicile. He makes Himself known at long and doubtful intervals. A little while they see Him, and then a little while they cannot find Him. He visits them by glimpses, as a superhuman guest, as if in contradiction to the law of that glorified human body, in which He was arrayed. Yet amidst all this majestic reserve, He affords to His disciples ‘‘infallible proofs” of His presence again among them. He adopts the same mode of teaching He had exhibited in the course of His human ministry. How often had He, when living among them, taught them out of the Scriptures that — the Son of Man was to go as it was determined (Luke xxii. 22). So now in His converse with the two disciples on their walk to Emmaus; ‘‘ beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke xxiv. 44). Had He not, during His taber- nacling on earth, frequently pressed upon their notice the great fact of His having been “‘ sent by the Father,” and had prayed, even in His last conver- sation with them, unto the Father, “As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world ?”’ (John xvi. 28.) So now in His first interview with His disciples, after His victory over the grave, He said to them again, ‘As My Father ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 275 oo tiger Lae i oe hath sent Me, even so I send you’ (John xx. 21), How must the familiar words have served to assure them of the restored presence of their Master! Did our Blessed Lord, during His earthly ministry, claim — for Himself as the Son of Man the power to forgive sins? (Matt. ix. 6.) He now imparted that same power to His disciples. “ Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John xx.23). Did He while living among His disciples exhibit His Divine character by the working of miracles? So now He displays a continuous possession of the same prerogative in that miraculous draught of fishes, witnessed by seven of His disciples in the early dawn on the shore of Gennesareth (John xxi. 5, 6, 7). In addition to these “infallible proofs ” by which our Lord shewed Himself alive after His passion, there are in the record of the sacred narrative many pre-eminent corroborations afforded (during these great forty days of our Lord’s occasional Appear- ances) to the identity of the Angel-Jehovah with our Lord Jesus Christ. In the first place, it is to be observed, that our Blessed Lord had said in His last conversation with His apostles, “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter” (John xiv.16). But now, after His Resurrection, He gives them the Holy Ghost on His own authority. “He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost ” (John xx. 22). Is not this act of personally imparting the Holy Spirit, a claim to be Ids 276 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Himself co-eternal and co-equal with the Father; an assertion that He was that Angel-Jehovah, who had ~ at all times been possessed of the power and attri- butes of Jehovah ? What, again, means the acceptance by our Blessed Lord of the words of St. Thomas, when, on the surrender of his incredulity, he expresses the convictions of his soul, ‘‘ My Lord,* and my God ?” (John xx. 28). Is not this an acknowledgment of His oneness with the Divine Father ? What means, again, this august claim to supreme universal power, both in Heaven and earth, and the consequent promise of Divine protection unto’ the end of the world (Matt. xxviii. 18), unless it carries with it this legitimate interpretion : ‘‘ Unto Me, the Angel-Jehovah, who has at all times superintended the Divine communications with mankind; unto Me, now, as the Firstborn from the dead, is all power and authority given, both over the Church in Heaven and the Church on earth; and by virtue of that power, I send you forth to make disciples in my name in all lands, and as in times past I have had the government upon my shoulder, so will I, in all fature time, be with you and with your successors until the end of the world.” * The late Canon Townsend (‘‘ Chronological Arrangement of the New Testament,” vol. i., p. 573) suggests that the exclama- tion of St. Thomas may be rendered, “Thou art the Lord Jehovah, the manifested God of my Fathers.” ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 277 ee What significance, again, is contained in the last Divine command enjoined on the Apostles with all the solemnity of a final farewell exhortation, that they should baptize all nations in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. xxviii. 28), Surely the equality in power, in attributes, in all the essence of Deity, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost forms the very basis for baptizing in the Triune name? But to to be equal with the Divine Father was the essential prerogative of the Jehovah-Angel of the Covenant ; and it may fairly be inferred from this final act of our Blessed Lord, in imposing this triple formula of admission into His Church as the last injunction upon the Apostles, that it was His intention to enforce throughout all ages the identity of Himself with the Angel-Jehovah of the earlier Dispensations. Immediately after this last Divine command given to the Apostles assembled at the Mount of Olives, our Blessed Lord lifted up His hands and blessed them; and while in the act of blessing “He was taken from them, and carried up into Heaven.’ No human hand assisted Him—no angel bare Him—no chariot of fire conveyed Him. By His own Divine power, with which He had laid down His life, and had taken it up again, He left the earth in that restored human frame, which His disciples had touched, handled, and examined. While they, lost in astonish- ment and perplexity, looked up with the utmost intensity of human sight into the heavens, He rose 278 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE higher and higher through the blue firmament of the sky, amidst the brightness of the noonday sun, till a cloud received Him out of their sight. On their withdrawing their bewildered gaze from the heavens, two Angels* clothed in white, or shining raiment, appeared to them, and said, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, whom ye have seen go into heaven, shall come again in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven” ( Acts i. 11). What more consistent or more suitable termination of the manifestations of the Angel-Jehovah under the Patriarchal and Levitical Dispensations, or of His wondrous career as the Lord Jesus Christ, could possibly be conceived than this His visible Ascension in the human nature glorified into the heavens? If the Lord Jesus Christ though at one time sent by the Father as the Angel-Jehovah, and at another time sent by the Father as the Incarnate Son, were in each condition equal with the Father, was it not an inherent necessity of His Divine nature, that He * «When God first brought his Son into the world, it was said, ‘ Let the Angels of God worship Him;’ and so they did, And when God here carries his Son out of the world they came down and worship Him again: for as He is the Son of Man, He is Lord both of men and angels. They are here said to be but two. It must be meant that these two stayed behind with the Apostles, for otherwise the Scripture is clear, that Christ had twenty thousand, and thousands of thousands of Angels in them all, when He ascended up on high.’”’—Bp. Cosin. ONe tides MOUNT OF OLIVES: 279 should be again taken up into the very presence of the Father, with whom He was before the world began, and that He should return into the heavenly habitations in that body which had been prepared for Him, and in which He had declared the Divine will? If the Lord Jesus, at once the Angel of the Covenant and the virgin-born Emanuel is the one divinely-appointed Mediator between God and man, is not the invisible and inaccessible Heaven the only fitting abiding scene of the Divine and accepted Mediation P If our Blessed Lord had not been exalted by a visible admission of His human nature into the heavens, what certain and sufficient proof could have been afforded of the efficacy of His intercession, of the virtue of His propitiation, of the completion of His conquest, of the certainty of His power to bless His people, and to exercise all judgment P On the other hand, what complete testimony does His glorious Ascension afford to the perfection of His Mediation? He can now, by virtue of His glorified Humanity, rightfully mediate on behalf of His purchased possession (Hph. 1. 14), purchased with His own blood (Acts. xx. 28). He can now by virtue of His return to the glory, which He had with the Father before the world was, make effectual intercession as the Divine Son, “with whom the Father is always well pleased.” What more fitting corroboration of all His highest claims as the Angel of the Covenant, or as the Man Christ Jesus, could possibly be afforded, than is by the Divine 280 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE goodness vouchsafed in the solemn announcement of the fact “that while He blessed them He was taken from them and carried up into heaven ” P XIJI—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ST. STEPHEN. Our Lord’s disciples partake of His Baptism.—St. Stephen fore- sees the modification of the Mosaic institutions.—He incurs the hatred of the Jews.—He defends himself before the Sanhedrin.—His speech excites the anger of his audi- ence.—His second and greater offence.—He identifies the Lord Jesus with the Angel-Jehovah.—The frenzy of the populace.—Their execution of St. Stephen.—His last prayer.— His peaceful end.—The Appearance to St. Stephen a testimony to the continued government of the Church by the Angel-Jehovah. Tue disciples of our Lord were soon made partakers of His sufferings, and were baptized with the baptism He was baptized with. Within three and a half years after the visible departure of their Divine Master, the first active persecution of His followers commenced at Jerusalem. St. Stephen, an office- bearer in the newly-organized community, an Hellen- ist, of the Dispersion, and therefore less devoted than the Jews of the Capitol to the ritual of the Temple, was the first to perceive that the final Dis- pensation inaugurated by the wonders of the Day of Pentecost, would lead to great and important modifications in the existing Levitical institutions. Well versed in the Jewish Scriptures, endowed with LOeST.. STEPHEN. 281 rere ee! Ne ewe a courage, eloquence, and zeal, he proclaims in the Grecian synagogues at Jerusalem his convictions of the approaching changes. This threatened subversion of the sacred Mosaic ordinances united every sect and party, Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and people, in a common hatred of so daring and presumptuous an innovator. The passions and prejudices of the multitude are awakened, and they rush tumultuously on the speaker, and hurry him, with violence, into the presence of the Sanhedrin. St. Stephen, supported by more than human aid, and bearing on his countenance tokens of a Divine illumination, courageously defends himself before the assembled elders. He shows ina learned and length- ened discourse, that Abraham, the founder of their nation, received the right of Circumcision, as a proof of the acceptedness of his Gentile faith ; that Moses, their great Lawgiver, had foretold the coming of a Prophet greater than himself; that King Solomon, on the very dedication of their first glorious Temple, had intimated that the worship of the Lord Jehovah was not confined to Temples made with hands. He places their late condemnation of the Lord Jesus in the same category of guilt as was incurred by their forefathers who had rejected Moses, and had slain their prophets, and concludes his defence with a vehement remonstrance. “ Ye stiffnecked and un- circumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers per- 282 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE secuted P and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (Acts vil. 51, 2). This bold reproof excited the utmost fury of his audience. ‘They were cut to the heart and gnashed upon him with their teeth ;” but as yet no threats are heard against his life. St. Stephen, however, was to give greater offence, and to arouse to a still fiercer height the hatred and anger of his country- men. He had declared in his address to the Sanhedrin that “the God of glory” had appeared unto Abraham, and had also revealed Himself to Moses, in the church in the wilderness, as the Angel of the Covenant, saying, ““I am the God of thy Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” And then he associates this expres- sion, ‘‘the glory of the Lord” (the recognized symbol among his countrymen of the presence and manifestation of the Lord Jehovah) in the closest and most intimate connection with the name of the despised and hated Jesus, and asserts that at the very moment of his speaking he saw “the glory * of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;” and again he said, “‘ Behold! I see the heavens opened, * Stephen, the first to die for the Faith of Christ, looked up stedfastly to heaven, saw the Shekinah-glory, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.—_Medd’s Bampton Lectures, p. 44. ; TO ST. STEPHEN. 283 and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts vii. 57, 58). His hearers immediately recognize the significance of the words. They cried with a loud voice of indignation, stopped their ears not to hear the blasphemy, and ran upon him with one accord. The Rulers of this Council had lately declared to the Roman governor, that by their law they could put no man to death; but on this occasion the lawless and infuriated populace take the law into their own hands, and in a sudden ebullition of popular frenzy, in the heat and hatred of the supposed pro- fanity, in an outburst of uncontrollable rage, seize upon St. Stephen, cast him in haste out of the city, and stone him with stones unto his death. The blessed martyr, undaunted by the clamour, and heed- less of the malice of his oppressors, prays for his murderers and departs in peace, saying, “ Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” This wondrous vision may be regarded as the grand and appropriate climax and consummation of all the long succession of the preceding Theanthropies. The Divine Being, who had revealed Himself as the Angel-Jehovah to the Patriarchs, Leaders, and Pro- phets of the earlier ceconomics, who had for thirty- three years tabernacled among men as the Incarnate Redeemer, who had submitted to the grave, who had shown Himself alive after His passion, who had visibly departed into the heavens, now manifested Himself in his glorified humanity to St. Stephen. This marvellous Appearance reflects light, radiance, 284 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE ee ee eee and significance on all the antecedent* manifesta- tions, proves beyond all contradiction the essential oneness and consistency of the Three Dispensations, and attests the continuity and sameness of the Divine government of the Church. The “glory of God,” which was the recognized symbol of the Divine presence under the Levitical Covenant is now mani- fested in the closest union with the glorified humanity of the Ascended Lord, and bears witness to the teaching that Christ Jesus is at once the Angel- Jehovah, the exalted Saviour, the one only Lord, Ruler, guide, and director of the Church in all ages, “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” XIV.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ST. PAUL. The early history of Saul.—His repute in the Jewish and Gentile world.—His fitness for opposing the new faith.— His high Mission to Damascus.—The evidences which Saul as a Jew would require in a Revelation of the God of his Fathers.—The manifestation of those evidences.— Their effect upon Saul.—He identifies Jesus with the Angel-Jehovah.—The testimony of Ananias to the same truth.—The testimony of St. Paul. —The life-long remem- brance of this Divine Appearance.—lIts influence on the ministrations of St. Paul.—Its lesson to the Church. Wuewn St. Stephen was hurried to his martyrdom, “the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young a a ei 2 eee * These manifestations recall, and are to be considered in a line with those Appearances in human or angelic form under the old Covenant.—Medd’s Bampton Lectures, p. 344. TORSTRED AUIS 285 © csp satel sa ES a eee ee man’s feet, whose name was Saul” (Acts vii. 58). This young* man was peculiarly fitted by his position and circumstances to be the foremost oppressor and persecutor of the followers of Christ. A Hebrew of the Hebrews (implying a birth for three generations from parents of Jewish extraction), brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, the learned Rabbi; a Pharisee of the strictest sect, a membert of the reverend assembly of the Sanhedrin, zealous for his ancestral faith, Saul possessed in an eminent degree the con- fidence of his countrymen. A citizen of Tarsus, and educated in its famous schools, Saul inherited the distinguished privilege of being a free-born citizen of the world-wide Roman Empire. Thus uniting in himself a nobility of Jewish birth, a deep affection to the Mosaic ordinances, and an assured fidelity, by virtue of his right of citizenship, to the imperial power of Rome, he is placed by the joint authority of the Jewish Sanhedrin, and of the Roman governor of Judea at the head of an important commission * Messrs. Conybeare and Howson (‘Life of St. Paul,” vol. i., Cc. i., p. 67), assert that Saul was about thirty years ofage. He could not have been entrusted at an earlier age with so important a commission as that with which he was sent to Damascus. These same able biographers suggest that St. Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin, as he speaks of having given his vote (Acts xxvi. 10), against those condemned by that assembly: and that he was consequently a married man: as no unmarried man was admitted to the Sanhedrin. Tradition makes St. Paul to have been a widower. t See above note. 286 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE sent to Damascus for the proscription of all persons, men or women, who were disciples of the new faith. These very same qualities of education, nobility, rank, learning, energy, zeal, fame, and influence both in the Jewish and Gentile world, which thus rendered Saul the fittest opponent of Christianity, caused him also to be the very person who could do most service to the Christian Church, if God would vouchsafe to make known to him the manifestations of his Presence. Saul as a learned Jew versed in the history of his own people, knew full well the manner in which the Lord Jehovah had revealed himself unto his fathers. He was well aware that ‘‘a Voice from the excellent glory” and the “shining of a bright light,” surpass- ing the splendour of the sun at noonday, were the signs and tokens of the Appearance of the Jehovah- Angel of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants. And now, as he approaches the end of his toilsome journey ‘‘as the dreary solitudes* of the Anti-Libanus were passed, and as he was about to enter the shady avenues, and well watered gardens of the beautiful Damascus,” while yet breathing out threatenings and slaughters against the disciples of the Lord, and burning with indignation against the supposed enemies of Jehovah, he sees a preter-natural light shining around him, and hears a voice from heaven speaking to him. He falls at once terrified to the ground, as all his predecessors had done, by whom eee Ne ee nee ee * Conybeare and Howson’s “ Life of St. Paul,” vol. i, ¢. 3. TO ST. PAUL. 287 ine that Voice was heard. He instantly recognizes the revelation to him of the Divine credentials, go familiar in Hebrew story. He acknowledges the wondrous symbols by which in earlier times the “God of Glory”? had made himself known to the great Hebrew lawgiver “as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Acts vii. 2, 31,32). He demands in prostrate adoration, “What wilt thou have me to do, O Lord (Jehovah) ?” and then, to his shame, astonishment, and overwhelming dismay he hears the amazing declaration “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest,” “I, who thus appeal to thee by these Divine credentials, recognized by thy Fathers, I, who thus prove to thy inmost conviction that [am the Lord Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, I yet am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks ”’* (Acts ix. 5). The correctness of this interpretation of this won- drous event is confirmed by the two-fold narrative of St. Paul. In the ninth chapter of Acts he records that “Ananias went his way, and entered into the house, and putting his hand on him said, Brother * The ‘“ prick” is the goad or sharp pointed pole or stick which in Southern Europe, and in the Levant is seen in the hands of those who are ploughing or driving cattle. (Conybeare and Howson’s ‘ Life of St. Paul,” vol.i., p. 88.) The expression here is supposed to refer to the convictions created in the mind of St. Paul by the arguments of the dying proto-martyr, and which he was striving against. 288 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Saul, the Lord (the Jehovah) even Jesus, that appeared* unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts ix. 17). While in his account of his conversion related to his countrymen from the stairs of the Temple, he declares that “ Ananias came unto him, and said, The God of our fathers has chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth: for thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard” (Acts xxii. 18, 14, 15). The two addresses of Ananias refer to the same event, and to the same Person, In the one Ananias tells Saul that “the Lord Jesus appeared to him in the way.” In the other he says to him, “The God of our fathers has chosen thee.” Ananias thus plainly identifies the Lord Jesus “ who appeared to him in the way,” with “the God of his fathers who had chosen him,” z.e. with the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the Angel-Jehovah of the Mosaic dispensation. The narrative yet affords further confirmation to the fact that Saul saw the Lord Jesus on this journey * There are three other occasions on which St. Paul was favoured with a personal appearance of his Divine master: on his first visit to Jerusalem (Acts xxii. 17, 18) : on his deliverance by the Roman guard, and his custody in the Roman barracks (Acts xxii. 11) : and on board the tempest tost ship of Adramyt- tium (Acts xxvii. 23). TO ST. PAUL. 289 to Damascus. To whom does Ananias refer as that Just One, whom Paul saw, and whose voice he heard, except it be the person of whose death the proto- martyr Stephen accused his countrymen. ‘‘ Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted ? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now, the betrayers and the murderers ”’ (Acts vii. 52). St. Paul’s own testimony is no less certain. What does he say to his Galatian converts? “I certify you, Brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me, is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. i. 11, 12), and when was Jesus Christ revealed to him, except it be in his wondrous Appearance to him on hig approach to Damascus, when he heard His voice, and saw His glory P St. Paul* retained a lifelong recollection of this Appearance to him of the Lord Jesus. In his addresses to his countrymen in their Synagogues, as also in his defence before the Roman tribunal at Cesarea, he ever endeavoured to convince them that the Lord Jesus in whom he believed, was the Lord Oi a ae ee a ee CA * The name of Paul was given to, or assumed by, the Apostle in memory of the conversion of the proconsul Sergius Paulus (Acts xiii. 7, 12). A primo ecclesia spolio proconsule Sergio Paulo victoria sux tropea retulit, erexitque vexillum ut Paulo ex Saulo vocaretur.— Kuinoel, N. T. Commentarium, vol. iv., p. 457, 19 290 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE Jehovah of their fathers, the Covenant God of Abra- ham, of Isaac and of Jacob. This second manifesta- tion of the glorified humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ is a true resuscitation of the Divine Angel- Jehovah. It confirms to the Christian Church a continuance of the care, government and protection of the same Divine Mediator, the Disposer, Lord, and Ruler of the two antecedent Dispensations. ‘ Oh,. the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out’? (Rom. x1. 33). XV.—THE DIVINE APPEARANCE TO ST. JOHN. St. John the last survivor of the Apostles.—Various incidents only mentioned by him.—The special object of his Gospel. —His proofs of the identity of the Lord Jesus, and the Angel-Jehovah. — The Vision at Patmos. — Archbishop Trench’s explanation of the same.—The appropriate con- summation.—The Testimony of the ‘Te Deum,” and of the ‘ Gloria in Excelsis.” Tur Evangelist St. John was the last survivor of his Brethren of the Apostolic College. He lived to see the siege of Jerusalem, the captivity and dispersion of his countrymen. Of the same age as his Divine Master, he was in a special manner honoured with his friendship and confidence, and is remembered through all time as “the Disciple, whom Jesus loved” (John xiii. 28). He alone of the Apostles stood by IO ST. JOHN. 291 cee gs eS 1 ele eG ee ee the Cross, and sought to soothe by his presence the sufferings of his Lord, who in reward of his loving fidelity committed to his care the future protection of his Blessed Mother. St. John records three sayings of our Lord during His suspension on the cross not mentioned by the other Evangelists, and also gives the fullest account of the events of the great Forty Days which followed the Resurrection of our Lord. He alone mentions “the breathing on the Apostles,” “the interview with St. Thomas on the second Lord’s Day,” “the draught of fishes on the shore of Gennesareth,” and “the conversations about the future destinies of St. Peter, and of himself.” The Gospel of St. John is written with one special object ; and that is the setting forth the identity of the Jehovah-Jesus, with the previously revealed Jehovah, the Almighty Angel Messenger of the Jewish Covenant. The preceding Books of this Treatise have shown that the Angel-Jehovah during the earlier Dispensations was frequently revealed _ under a twofold manifestation, uniting the lowly apparel of the Human, with the glories of the Divine nature. St. John commences his Gospel with the attribution to the Lord Jesus of a Title, “The Word,” which his countrymen were accus- tomed to associate with the Appearances of their great Messenger of the Covenant. He solemnly de- clares of this “ Word ” that He was in the beginning with God, that He was God, and without Him was 292 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE not anything made that was made,” and further, ‘That this Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” He thus predicates of the Lord Jesus the very same twofold manifestation which was the peculiar characteristic of the Angel of the Covenant. The Evangelist confirms and elucidates the same teaching by ascribing to the Lord Jesus other pecu- liar credentials which distinguished the Almighty Messenger of the Old Testament, viz. a Mission from the Father, and a perfect oneness and equality* with the Divine Father. As the Angel-Jehovah received the adoration and worship due alone to the Lord Jehovah, so did St. John demand on the behalf of the Lord Jesus “that men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father” (John v. 23), and thus the Gospel of St. John accords its testimony to the identity of the Lord Jesus, with the Divine Angel of the Jewish Dispensation. The favoured Apostle who was thus possessed of a true discernment of the Divine character of his Master, and who had been present alike at the Glories of the Holy Mount, and at the deep humiliation of Mount Calvary, is permitted to see another Appear- ance of the Lord Jesus. The scene of this glorious manifestation was the Isle of Patmos, a small but lovely spot in the Mediterranean Sea, to which the * See preceding pp. 248, 251. IO ST. FfOHN. 293 Apostle had been banished by an edict of the Roman Emperor Domitian. He thus describes the Vision. | I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me fear not, I am the First, and the Last. Iam He that liveth, and was dead ; and behold I am alive for evermore. Amen. And have the keys of Hades and of death (Rev. i. 13-18). Archbishop Trench gives this interpretation of the passage ‘‘ Here we have the glory of Christ—not as He is God, the Life, the fountain of Life, for all created beings, by whom and in whom they live, and move, and have their being—but Christ, as He is the Resurrection and the Life, as He is Life in conflict with death, and overcoming it, as Heis Life swallow- up death in victory. Christ, therefore, as He is Man (for only man could die), and yet as Man, the Son of Man, triumphing over death, and hell, and all the powers of the grave.’ Could there be a more fitting termination of the long series of the Divine Appear- 20 204 THE DIVINE APPEARANCE, ances recorded in this Treatise? Is not this final triumph of a Human Conqueror of Hades and Death a worthy conclusion of the Divine control and superin- tendence of human affairs, an efficient and complete fulfilment of the primeval promise? Is not this elevation of the Son of.Man to the splendours of an infinite Majesty the most appropriate consummation of all those wondrous manifestations of the Divine Angel of the Covenant, and of the mysteries of the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is not this brief final uplifting of the veil of the Invisible world accorded to St. John at Patmos, the surest confirma- tion that this very Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus hath still (asin the days that are past) the Government upon His shoulder, and that He will come again in His glory, exalted* as a Man, and yet seated upon the great white throne of asupreme and universal judgment ? Well may we lift up our voices and say, “Thou art the King of Glory O Christ. Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. When * Well may Bp. Hall exclaim, ‘‘ And why, O my soul, art not thou rapt out of my bosom, with an ecstacy of joy, to see this human nature of ours exalted above all the powers of Heaven, adored of Angels, Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, and all those mighty and glorious spirits, and sitting there crowned with infinite glory and majesty.””—Contemplations. Book iv., § 34. + See also the ‘Gloria in Excelsis in the Communion Service. O Lord, the only begotten Son Jesu Christ; O Lord God, Lamb APPENDIX A. 295 eet et ee thou tookest upon thee to deliver of man, thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s womb. When thou hast over- come the sharpness of death, thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers: Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father. We believe that thou shalt come to be our J udge. We therefore pray thee help thy servants, whom ‘thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood. Make them to be numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting. O Lord save thy people and bless thine heritage. Govern them, and lift them up for ever. Day by day, we magnify thee, and we worship thy Name, ever world without end.” APPENDIX A. ON THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH OR “SEGULLAH.” Tue Divine appointment of the Levitical Priesthood, on the rescinding of the Ministry of the First Born, implies and of necessity demands that any subse- of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer. Thou that sittest at the _ right hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us. For thou only art holy; Thou only art the Lord ; Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father. 296 APPENDIX A. quent ministry in God’s Church must be founded on some similarly sure credentials, and demonstrations of the Divine sanction. The portents of Mount Sinai, therefore, are corresponded to by the wonders of the Day of Pentecost. Hach of these mysterious scenes is the solemn abrogation of an elder, and the introduction in its stead of a later Covenant. Hach was attended by undoubted signs and indications of the Divine Presence, the one as the commencement of the Jewish, the other as the inchoation, in its place of the Christian Ministry. Thus the Jewish priest- hood with its threefold ministrations of High Priest, Priest, and Levite, was merged under Divine authori- ty, in the fulness of time, into the threefold office of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon, in the Christian Church. “Thus was preserved (writes the Rev. Charles Leslie) the fixed and stated principle of the Segullah, or pe- culium which God delivered to the Jews from the beginning, and implies the true notion of the Church, as being the peculium, or select society gathered from the rest of mankind under governors and laws ; with promises and privileges of their own, peculiar to themselves, and independent of all others upon Carth a Mea Ms The many myriads of Jews who at first went over to Christianity found as strict a notion of the Segullah there; and saw how it was transferred (as from the beginning it was intended ) from the Segullah of Moses to that of the Messias. It was, indeed, but the same Church or Segullah, under different ceconomics or Dispensations. ..... APPENDIX A. 297 The first Christian Church was wholly of the Jews, and established in Jerusalem, whose Bishop did answer the High-priest, and was the principle of unity to the Christian Jews, as the High-priest was to the other; so that the Segullah was preserved entire, only transferred from the Jewish priest to the Christian Bishop. . ... . The Gospel, all Christ’s life-time, went not without the pale of the Segullah. After Christ's Resurrection, then He extended their commission further, and bade them ‘Go and preach amongst all nations,’ but still beginning at Jerusalem; to show that there the Christian Segullah was first established ; and de- rived from thence, as from the root, to spread among all nations.”—Leslie’s Short and Easy Method with the Jews, pp. 95-11. S.P.C.K. edition. nt fr = WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. ee he Churchman’s Year: An explanation of the First Lessons, Epistles, and Gospels of the Sundays throughout the year. Rzvington, 1842. © Lhe Christian Pilgrimage - An explanation of the occasional Services. Rivington, 1844. Lhe ftistory of the Town and Borough of Leominster. 400 pp. 8vo. Partridge, Leominster, 1861. Lhree LFlundred Fsop's Fables, Literally translated from the Greek. Routledge § Co., 1867. Lhe Sea Kings of the Mediterranean. S. BP. C. Knowledge, 1872. The Stege of Colchester. Do., 1874. A Cruise on the Bosphorus. Do., 1876. we] Spb AN Sh eh le UR aR DRONA can Coenen teaNeani ania rnc SNA: = ad oe: Enea eiptiee ase cases Ne I ete , Ss ; . bs : Aa DARN ERS URR ADIN peel ; : ax a See aah Sane ene ee SRRN DAD Sees >. . : ‘ & % . . = ~) sa” 4 “ x ~ : ; ; L . + 7 m « : . ‘ wis, Pe ‘ AC ‘ : ‘ S . . 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