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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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